Purdue 79, Iowa 72: Postgame Video

I always get very annoyed when Purdue loses at home. Since tonight was the 100th consecutive sellout at Mackey Arena and we are now 89-11 in that span (and how many of those 11 have come without a full Paint Crew?) you can understand why. I feel like we can only lose on Keady Court if we play a very poor game. We already did it once this year against Iowa State and tonight was very similar.

Maybe we just suck this year against teams from the state of Iowa. Hopefully Drake or Northern Iowa don’t win the MVC and show up in the tournament.

With 14:36 left this one was looking a lot like the game against the Cyclones. The Boilers were struggling to hit open shots, Trey Kaufman-Renn was being mostly handcuffed except for his consecutive three-point plays, and the Hawkeyes had jsut ripped off a 10-0 run to go up 48-39 in the previous two minuts.

It looked an awful lot like the Iowa State game.

This time the ending was different. It turns out Braden Smith is really good at basketball and he was able to take the game over for a very gritty win. Some thoughts before the videos:

• I am REALLY not looking forward to the Iowa-Nebraska road trip now. Nebraska is a legit excellent team and Iowa’s defense (yeah, Iowa plays defense now!) was really flustering Purdue’s motion.

• Biggest shot of the night goes to CJ Cox. He got left wide open for a corner three with 2:04 left and buried it, stretching a two point lead to five. This was after Tavion Banks banked in a ridiculous 29 footer as the shot clock expired.

• Purdue hit the front end of two one-and-ones! I don’t have any stats, but it seems like if there is a one-and-one situation we always miss the front end.

• Braden is now at 922 for career assists and on track to break the NCAA record in Purdue’s second Big Ten Tournament game if he keeps up his season average. He is averaging 9.65 assists per game and he needs to average at most 9.625 per game if Purdue plays only the two postseason games that we’re gauranteed to get.

• That said, we needed his scoring tonight and 16 second half points saved our ass.

• I love CJ Cox. That is all. The kid is such a versatile guard.

• How does Trey Kaufman-Renn only have two rebounds?

• Not the best game for Daniel Jacobsen. He missed a lot right at the rim and seemed generally uncomfortable. The luck went his was though on a second half tip in. Still had a team high 9 rebounds.

• This was another team game with every player scoring at least three points. We needed it too.

• Credit to Iowa for their defense really causing our motion offense fits. We always see at least one team a year that comes out to mess with the high screen and roll action and that disrupts everything. Tonight’s solution was “Braden is going to drive and hit circus layups.”

• It is so critical to not blow games like this at home. The key to winning the Big Ten is to not lose at home and take at least six on the road. Well, mission accomplished, so far. We’re 4-0 at home and have already picked up two road wins.

• Omer Mayer, Jack Benter, and Gicarri Harris each hit some absolutely critical threes tonight.

• Four of the next five and six of the next eight are on the road. Purdue will probably be favored in each game bofore going to Lincoln for a game against Nebraska that looks huge. It would be nice to be at least 10-2 entering that one.

• Everyone win is beautiful, and Purdue is still tied for first at 6-0. That’s all that matters.

Gicarri Harris, Braden Smith, and Daniel Jacobsen

Ben McCollum

Matt Painter