[Playing Purdue]

7 hours ago, BoilerMKT said:

Thanks for the response.  If he passes well out of it, Bell is the likely beneficiary and it looks like he's capable of knocking them down from the perimeter, so that may work well for you.  Pretty sure we'll try doubling, though, because it looked like Simmons was effective one-on-one vs. Bassey, at least in the first half.

Purdue is very analytically driven, so I'm certain they will focus a ton of attention on Hamlet.  Eric Hunter is really good on the ball--held Notre Dame's leading scorer Prentiss Hubb to 0 points, forced Minnesota's Marcus Carr into a 2-for-13 night, held Wisconsin's D'Mitrik Trice to 2-for-10 one game after he had lit Illinois up for 29 points.  Hunter and Hamlet are essentially the same size (and both left-handed), so that battle will be very interesting to watch and may be the most important matchup in the game.

A couple comments from my perspective....

Purdue usually does well against teams that try to slow it down and win ugly, or which play tough defense, provided they don't have world beating talent in that system. Virginia was like that in '19 and they barely escaped with their W. Wisconsin is another example and we have handled them pretty well over the years. Purdue from the days of Gene Keady onwards are no strangers to tough defense, we play it with the best of them. At Mackey, our slogan is" "Defense Lives Here".

That said, this is not a prototype Purdue team this year and our outside shooting is not nearly as deadly as it usually is. That will limit our potential this year in my opinion. On a positive side, we have a ton of young talent and the 7'4 kid Edey is going to be a superstar before he is done. He will be the best big man we've had and we've had some good ones. At 7-4 with long arms and decent hops, we can always lob it right in there to him near the basket. 

I think Williams will be a good test for your guys down low, he's a skilled player with alot of size and strength, and a crafty passer. 

Eric Hunter is our best on ball defender and I think he will do a good job on Hamlet(?), in the past, we have usually been able to frustrate the mid-major alpha scorers we face in the tournament, so we will see if that continues. Super athletic wings are usually more of our weakness. 

Looks like UNT is a good program heading in the right direction, and I think with their senior leadership, defense, shooting and guard play, they have the potential to be a Cinderella this year. Good luck!