Game 6: Purdue

[LU65Participant]

KenPom Projections

LU (0-5) and ranked 191st
Patriot League ranked 21st

@

Purdue (5-0) and ranked 8th
Big Ten ranked 3rd

Purdue wins by 20 (84-64)

Commentary

I’m slightly surprised by the Pomeroy’s 20 point margin of victory forecast, in light of the fact that thru five games the Boilermakers have swamped their foes by an average of 28.8 ppg and 34.5 ppg at home. What does he know that we don’t? Maybe he’s thinking we’ll resort to the 3-point shot and limit our attempts from in-close. Hey, why not? Look at the stats. Purdue is a top 10 school in defending the “2” and our shots (primarily the 2) are blocked 18.1% of the time – good for 347th in the nation. That’s better than Hartford, Georgia Southern, and two other teams I didn’t even know were in D-1 (NC Central and Incarnate Word). Not pretty. On the other hand, we’re connecting on 35.3% of our long ball attempts (ranked 129th) or better than 63% of the teams in D-1. Our “2’s” are only marginally more effective than out “3’s” (.392 vs. .353). It only makes me think we’ll see TK at the top of the key more often tomorrow night with AP, JC and KL letting the long ones go. If nothing else, it should be entertaining.

Who starts? DC or KL – you be the judge

5-game Stat Lines

DC: 20.4 mpg, 3.4 ppg, 1.6 rpg, .286 3FG%
KL: 22.2 mpg, 6.6 ppg, 3.2 rpg, .438 3FG%

Game Time: 7pm, Saturday and available on ESPN3

33 day ‘til Army

[RichHParticipant]

Might as well bite the bullet and start KL. Perhaps as a de facto starter so as not to disrespect DC.
DC can be effective in short bursts off the bench.

[toddcuddParticipant]

I’m leaning the same way; we’re seeing a lot of upside with KL. However, we should bear in mind that the pluses will come with some downside that are to be expected with a frosh. For example, KL lead us in both TOs and PFs against UVA. We’ll get some mistakes, but I’m good with the trade-offs.

[toddcuddParticipant]

Sitting squarely in the “be careful what you wish for” category, our strength of schedule is ranked 9th in the nation this morning on KenPom. Gonna guess that will go up after today’s game.

It’s tough to ride through the losses, and gets discouraging. But we have wanted the team to be challenged in the OOC schedule, and we got our wish. I’m still hopeful that it has desired effect: toughening us up, learning, and preparing us for the conference season.

[LU65Participant]

I like and agree with your thinking, Tod. To take your research a bit further, here’s how the OOC records (D-1 games only) shape up when compared to KenPom’s Strength of Schedule rankings:

@ 3-2
Navy 254
Army 181

@ 2-2
Bucknell 194

@ 2-3
Holy Cross 284
Boston U. 42

@ 1-3
Colgate 155

@ 1-4
Loyola 286
Lafayette 32

@ 0-4
American 76

@ 0-5
Lehigh 9

You can begin to see why the PL has slipped in Conference Rankings from 18th to 21st. Meanwhile, Lehigh has fallen from what was its 120th position entering the game at Syracuse to 191st this week.

[lehigh90Participant]

Purdue is just huge up front. With our lack of quality bigs up front, this looks like a really tough spot. Just giving up too much size. We are going to get demolished on the glass.

[lehigh90Participant]

Not a terrible first half. KR playing well. Down 10, but we shot it poorly, especially from line. We are competing well.

[RichHParticipant]

Either players over amped or Purdue has diffefdnt size rims ,good effort so far.

[lehigh90Participant]

Came out really poorly in first 5 of second half. Kemp ton getting eaten alive in post. Need to score some buckets before this gets away.

[lehigh90Participant]

Haas is a monster in post. TK looks tiny next to him at 6’10”.

[jimk72Participant]

A.P.1-11 from the field at this point. Hopefully this gets flushed out of his system. He has to shoot better for us to have any chance of recovering for a respectable season.

[RichHParticipant]

Not that any 1-11 is good but AP’s is really desperate.

[LU15Participant]

He was pressing like hell I’m sure, like Hillard did last year for Nova at the PPL center!

[RichHParticipant]

Definitely pressing. Good shooters have to shoot not press. AP has to develop that confidence. He has the ability.

[LU15Participant]

Good fight though, apprently MH will be ” revevulated”

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