Purdue Boilermakers 67, Indiana Hoosiers 53: Boiler defense stifles Hoosiers.

IU was iffy last night. If they played a stronger game last night it would have come down to the wire.

Both teams shooting were pretty sub-par. I’d imagine it has something to do with those rims. They were damn unforgiving. Every ball that hit the rim didn’t have a chance of falling unless you were E’Twaun “3 bounce” Moore. I’d imagine Purdue would look better on the road shooting from perimeter than they do at home if the rims are always that tough to shoot on.

Purdue’s perimeter defense was pretty solid. I wasn’t sold on IU’s weave and drive play. Dakich kept saying that the best way to beat Purdue is to play north and south not east and west. We did too much east and west before trying to attack the basket with 10 seconds left on the clock. That being said it did limit the possessions which IU needed to do, so I guess you gotta take the good with the bad.

Fouls and FTs. Gotta balance that back out.

Elston and Pritchard both did a fantastic job on the boards and defensively considering the odds of their success being so low. They get props for a good night.

Will Sheehey also gets props. He’s currently the better of the two freshmen. More controlled and basketball savvy to go with that athleticism. VO has a bad tendency to make some pretty boneheaded mistakes when he gets to emotionally high. When Sheehey gets pumped its usually a good thing. Not with VO, he stops thinking.

The Hulls/Barlow incident was a blimp. Hulls had the ball, Barlow reached for it Hulls shrugged him off. Would you call it an elbow? I guess, but it wasn’t anything malicious. Basketball emotions were running high last night, wouldn’t be upset if the situation was swapped. It’s a rivalry for a reason.

Moore seemed like he could take it to the rim any time he felt like it. Our defense was about as good as I expected and almost as good as I hoped for. If we were able to hit more of our open looks that caliber of defense could have been good enough to win us the game.

I think Crean had a good gameplan. Have to limit the possesions when going against Purdue and we really did get quite a few good looks. Just wasn’t able to knock them down. I liked Sheehey and Victor getting a lot of minutes. Sheehey is just fun to watch and Victor needs playing time to develop. He’s one of our most athletic players and is going to have a breakout game one of these days.

I’m optimistic about playing Purdue at home. We’ll shoot the ball better and have the benefit of one of the loudest crowds in the Big Ten. At the very least we’ll take it down to the wire.

What happened with Jordan Hulls and Kelsey Barlow?

The ref signaled it was Purdue ball, but Hulls started to walk away with the ball. Kelsey tried to grab it from him and Hulls threw a little tantrum.

We will see how tough Kelsey is when he actually has to shoulder some of the load

Barlow had eight rebounds, four assists and three steals.

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