Purdue fans poured into Mackey Arena on Friday morning for a noon tipoff against an overmatched Eastern Illinois Panthers squad. This wasn’t a team that was going to seriously challenge Purdue, but it was a good game to have following the Bahamas MTE and prior to the upcoming start of Big Ten season against Rutgers on the road. All Purdue really had to do to win this one was show up. I’m not saying that to disparage the Panthers but there’s clearly a disparity in these two teams. That was on full display in the first half.
John Wooden Memorial Player of the Game (JWMPOTG):Daniel Jacobsen earns this one after legitimately flirting with a triple double. He finished with 24 points, a career high, 9 rebounds, and 6 blocks, a career high. The big man continues to get better each week. It won’t be long until opposing fan bases start to say that he’s just tall. That’s how you know you’ve made it.
Purdue didn’t play particularly well in the first half but still went into the locker room up 53-28. Purdue was sloppy. Sloppy like your Aunt who was on her fourth glass of wine as you brought out the pies last night. In the first stanza alone Purdue turned the ball over 9 times. Reminder that Painter and staff want that number to be in single digits for an entire half. Eastern Illinois took those 9 turnovers and turned them into 15 first half points. That’s right, more than half of Eastern’s first half points came on the back of Purdue’s turnovers. To make matters worse, it wasn’t Eastern Illinois pressure that was causing the turnovers. It was carelessness from the Boilermakers. Too much turkey yesterday? At least four of the turnovers were travel calls. So how, with those 9 turnovers did Purdue manage to dominate the first half? Well, it was all about rebounding. Purdue outrebounded the Panther’s 19-6 going into half. It was even worse just a few minutes before the break as it was 18-3. I’m not sure the last time I can remember a rebounding disparity that wide. Purdue also shot the ball very well in the first half going 50% from three and 11-11 at the free throw line including 7-7 from Daniel Jacobsen and Oscar Cluff. You’ve gotta appreciate what a luxury it is to have your big men shooting free throws like that. It also helps to have a big man roaming the low post on the other end as Jacobsen went into halftime with 4 blocked shots. That’s a good days work. It’s worth pointing out too that Fletcher Loyer took just two shots in the first half, both threes, made them both and also went 3-3 from the free throw line. So, for those doing the math at home that means Loyer had 9 points on 2-2 shooting. Talk about efficiency.
If Eastern Illinois thought they had any chance in this one Purdue quickly shut that down in the second half by starting the half on a 25-9 run. At that point it was all over and we were just waiting to see the final stats. The second half saw some of the best passing in recent memory from these Boilermakers. Braden Smith padded his stats to finish with 10 assists on the day. Omer Mayer was passing the ball over the court including a beauty across court to CJ Cox who unfortunately couldn’t finish the shot because that would have wound up on all the highlight reels. After that early hiccup of turnovers in the first half Purdue really locked it down to just stomp on poor Eastern Illinois. The second half saw another Purdue “avalanche” which is when a team goes on a run of 20-0 or more. That’s the second avalanche in as many games for the Boilermakers since they also had one against Texas Tech. Purdue finally allowed Eastern Illinois to score after the run reached 25-0.
There’s a lot of positives to take away from this game. Just off the top of my head? No injuries. Jacobsen’s growth. Smith gets another 10 assists to move into second place all time in the Big Ten. Purdue scores over 100 points. Painter was able to limit the minutes of the big three to Smith 23, Loyer 23, and Trey Kaufman-Renn 20. Take the easy one and prepare to head on the road for that dreaded first Big Ten game against Rutgers. Why is it always Rutgers?
