Winning Big Again: Purdue Clobbers Penn State 77-52

The last two games have been quite friendly to Purdue, as they followed a 91-68 walloping of Illinois with a 77-52 beating of Penn State at home early Saturday. Biggie led the way today with 19-12-4, followed by Carsen Edwards (13 points), Vince Edwards (10-7), and Dakota Mathias (10 points.) Penn State scored the first bucket of the game, but wouldn't light the scoreboard again until five minutes had passed and they found themselves staring down a 15-2 deficit. Things got a little bit better for the Nittany Lions as they managed to cut the lead to five with just under nine minutes to go in the first half. But Purdue would go on a 19-6 run to end the half, and that was pretty much the game in summary.

Some thoughts:

1. Biggie is an All American. He's just an utterly dominant player, regardless of who he's matched up against. I hope Purdue can make the second weekend in the NCAA Tournament so the rest of the country can see how good he actually is. Turnovers are pretty much his only weakness these days (he led the team with four today) but every other aspect of his game is dominant. Now that I've written that paragraph out, I can just copy-paste it in every remaining article this season.
    
2. Biggie is Purdue's best player, but Vince Edwards sets this team's ceiling. When he's clicking, when he's being aggressive on offensive, hitting his shots and attacking the rim, Purdue can match up against any body. He brings a great deal of versatility to this team if he's aggressive. He hasn't been at times this season, but today he was and that made a huge difference, especially early on.
    
3. Spike Albrecht did some good things. I haven't been 100% in on Spike getting a lot of minutes, but he contributed in a valuable way today. He hit the only shot he took, made a pair of free throws, only turned the ball over once...if that's his role in limited minutes for Purdue, then perfect. If winning depends on his play, we might be in trouble, but if he makes smart plays while giving the other guards some rest then he'll provide a good benefit to the team.
    
4. Turnovers will be eventually be what ends this team's season. They had 16 today, two more than the team they beat by 25. That's unacceptable. Further disappointing is the fact that Purdue's front-court contributed half of those turnovers. Haas, Edwards, and Swangian can win a lot of games for Purdue, but turning the ball over that much will hurt them just as much.
    
5. Shouts to Grady Eifert! In just a couple minutes of play he managed to score four points, grab two rebounds, and block a dunk at the rim. Pretty impressive.
    
6. Ryan Cline struggled today, missing all three of his 3-pointer attempts. But Purdue's shooting depth more than made up for it, as the rest of the team combined to shoot 8-17 from distance.
    
7. Purdue held Penn State to 31% shooting (while they themselves shot nearly 57%.) Penn State was not a great shooting team coming into the game today, but that's impressive regardless. 
    
8. Special acknowledgement to Carsen Edwards is deserved. He has played extremely well for a freshman. He makes the typical freshman mistakes (gets a little trigger happy, makes poor decisions with the ball) but he's so dynamic the good far out-weighs the bad. I'm not just on the Carsen Edwards bandwagon, I'm driving it, and looking into buying a trailer hitch because we're gonna run out of room soon. He has something that no one else on the team has, which is the ability to push forward in traffic. He can turn a normal possession into a transition opportunity with his dribble. This has led to numerous easy baskets at the rim, and open looks for shooters before the defense gets set up. He's great to watch, and Purdue is lucky to have him.
    
9. Matt Painter looks to have found his line-up, a top-8 with Haas, Albrecht, and Cline coming off the bench. I think line-ups have typically been one of Coach Painter's weak spots, but he's found a groove lately. It helps when you play Illinois and Penn State, but the points stands. His biggest test will be when the pressure is on in the post-season.
    
10. Things get challenging for Purdue now. Next up: @Michigan State, @ a surprisingly strong Nebraska, Northwestern, @Maryland, and @IU. How Purdue fairs against that tough of a schedule will determine whether or not winning the Big 10 is still a possibility.