2019/2020
- Thread starter h20pls
- Start date
RJ was wildly inconsistent. Had he played 2-3 years instead of just one for Archie, he might have been able to lose all the he bad habits ingrained in his play from Crean’s system.
De’Ron was hurt half the year.
Juwan? Great kid, but never a leader - either his junior or senior year. A major reason we struggled last year was a severe lack of leadership.
Newkirk? McSwain? Are you effing serious?
I
That season Smith Durham, Moore, and Thompson were the freshmen. Moore rarely played and Thompson redshirted so they definitely weren't relied upon. Durham and Smith are another story. They each had 9 starts with Durham averaging about 19mpg and Smith 15mpg. So they were certainly depended on minutes and defense. Definitely not needed for scoring.
Don't think his point was that it was a great team or had great leadership, just that it wasn't relying on the incoming freshmen to be major contributors like last year. In that sense he's correct because they weren't depended on as much as Langford and Phinisee but incorrect that they weren't relied on at all.
That season Smith Durham, Moore, and Thompson were the freshmen. Moore rarely played and Thompson redshirted so they definitely weren't relied upon. Durham and Smith are another story. They each had 9 starts with Durham averaging about 19mpg and Smith 15mpg. So they were certainly depended on minutes and defense. Definitely not needed for scoring.
It was very predictable that we were going to lose Blackmon and Bryant to the draft a year or more before they actually left. Williams was a mild surprise, but not totally unexpected. Crean's failure to replace these players, plus OG, screwed Archie's first year. I expected a much worse finish that year. I will argue that it would have been well below .500 if Crean had coached another year.
It was unfortunate that the season of multiple injuries happened when it did. Archie needed production from that freshman class and was robbed with Thompson and Hunter out and Davis less than 100%. We were actually lucky that Romeo played with his injury or the season would have been worse.
With everyone healthy (hopefully), we should see what would have happened last year. Adding Brunk, TJD, and Franklin to those players back will help. Brunk adds someone with experience to either start or back up a healthy Davis. That alone is a big improvement over last year.
TJD and Thompson together will play the role Juwan played well for two years. They don't have to replace his production, but I believe they could.
We are going to see for the first time how Archie's main recruits (Phinisee, Hunter, TJD, Brunk, and Thompson) will play with the top Crean returnees and upper classmen Green and Davis. Add Durham and Smith as transition players as they were recruited by Crean but never played for him.
This isn't a team I would expect to finish 11th in the conference. We have experience. We have good new additions. This team can be good if they can come together without the issues we had last year.
completely agree. I think a lot of national 'prognosticators" are lazy reporters who base much of their preseason predictions based on what limited knowledge they have of our team, combined with the results of last year, without fully understanding the results. Remember, preseason last year we were picked as high as 4th....while Purdue was picked 9th. This season will be a success if the various players gel together (which obviously didn't happen during much of the B1G season last year) combined with better FT shooting (which didn't happen last year) and a little luck on the injury front (which also didn't happen last year) . I'm expecting 20+ wins this season and an IU team that is NIT bound come next March would be viewed as a disappointment to me. The results of this coming season can no longer be pinned on CTC.
I like Robert Johnson, seems like a good guy and hard worker. But Yogi made him look good by shouldering a big load with ball handling, and being able to nail dagger 3 pointers. You could not slack off of Yogi, he could even nail that huge step-back 3 which was nearly impossible to defend. That skill left RJ open for many good-look 3s from the wing. When Yogi left, life on the court got more difficult for RJ and the results show it. I've said it before on this board, Yogi was a stud his Sr year and his departure caused a huge backcourt vacuum that CTC could not fill. Guys like Newkirk were never going to fill the void.
IIRC, RMK said that there were 3 capable 3-point shooters in the Big Ten that year and I've got 2 of them--Wittman and Kitchel. His TIC implication was that other Big Ten players would then start jacking up bad 3-point shots trying to prove that they were that 3rd shooter lol.
I agree with the lazy predictions. They will see we lost our 2 top scorers and move us down based on that. They don't realize how thin we were in the front court and how we played combinations that were never expected to play together.
We will need to prove we aren't an 11th place team. Someone (besides a boiler fan because I am probably ignoring them) needs to tell me why Purdue is ranked 4th or wherever they are.
RoJo was at his best as a third option. He struggled as the responsibility for him shifted to take a scoring lead. He did well when Yogi and Blackmon was the focus and he had no pressure to score.
He was prone to shooting slumps as the season went on. The only year he didn't have one of these slumps was the year he got injured and missed the rest of the year. He was playing well at that time.
Purdue 4th...for the same reason. These people look at the tourney run, see that they only lost a couple people, so heck, they should still be very good. Losing Edwards and Kline will be like IU losing Yogi. You just lost your offensive engine, the heart of your team, and the guys who can handle the ball. They are discounting the huge hole that losing 2 upperclassmen guards will leave. Offensively they will be a completely different team, and no one can say now how that will play out in the coming season.
Preseason polls mean little come mid February. WIll be interesting 6 months ahead for both programs. I laugh at the sunshine boys on GBI who are booking hotel rooms at the next 2 FF venues.
You’re kind of ignoring the fact that Painter has lost his best player, or in last years case, best four players, all senior 1000 point scorers, yet, continued to bring out the best in his team by focusing on players strengths and compensating for their weaknesses.
Painter is still there no matter who has moved on ana history shows us that losing your best player isn’t a reason to discount the Boilers. Purdue will have the same team for the next two seasons if nobody leaves early. Seven of this years players return from an elite eight team and co-Bigten Champs. There is a reason they are ranked where they are going into the season.
Robert Johnson would be BY FAR the best player on this year’s team. It’s not even remotely close.
This is the worst roster in Archie’s 3 seasons. It just gets worse with every year he’s here.
Our best player is Devonte Green and a Butler backup is likely our starting center.
not discounting them. But NCAA ball has become so perimeter/3pt shooting oriented, losing Carson and Kline (who carried the team to the E8) will hurt more than anyone on GBI is currently willing to admit. I don't see anyone on the Purdue roster who can fill those shoes. It will be a different style of offense for sure.
I think someone like a Wheeler would be in a position to have a big, break-out season this year. I saw some serious upside in that kid last year.
Will be interesting to see what other B1G teams look like this year. Minny, Wisconsin, OSU, Iowa, and UM with Howard at the coach.
PU #4 because of Painter, IMHO
Until proven otherwise, he's the second best coach in the league, and the Boilers will annually have as good of a shot as competing for a league title and going to another sweet 16 as any team in the league not named MSU.
This year appears to be a year where they could really lay an egg, but if they don't ......
As for IU, I expect that we will be pretty darn good. But, before we can start patting ourselves on the back, we'll need several years of sustained success.
He did say that first part, but he didn't name Wittman and Kitchell because there was no 3 PT line when they played. Knight tells this story in his book. It was 87, and he said it with the intent that every other team's best guy would Jack them up. Knight thought everyone would shoot them way too much and he was encouraging it.
That year, Alford took 202 threes, and Smart was second in attempts with 33!
Good teams have good leaders and a guy the team looks to be the one to take a last shot. Not the guy that wants to be a hero and take the last shot, but the guy who will make the last shot. There is a difference. I don't see that person with Purdue. Edwards and Kline played that role. Edwards played that role for 2 years and the other Edwards did as well. All are gone. They will easily replace the points scored, but not that guy. Eastern? His mom is probably on GBI posting that he will be the guy.
Our guy will be Green. Sink or swim, be will play that role. We didn't have that player identified last year. The ball was like a hot potato. The one with the ball as time ran out had to put up the shot. We thought the guy would be Romeo. He was a very patient scorer, but not a leader on the court in key moments.
The conference had a one year experiment with the 3 point shot in 82-83, Kitchell shot about 66%, Wittman was about 45%, neither had a great deal of attempts
Hello fpeaugh. Exactly how high are you right now? Phinissee is light years ahead of Newkirk. Our front court is miles ahead of what it was in Archie's first year. You remember 6'4" Freddie McSwain playing center don't you?
This roster is much better than the Newkirk, McSwain team, talent wise, and BB IQ wise. Soph. Phinissee >>>> 5th yr SR Newkirk.
Freshman TJD, Jr. Brunk, Sr. DeRon, Soph. Race >>>> McSwain
It doesn't work like that, you must be confusing it with being drunk.
Honestly, I don't think the guy requires any kind of chemical alteration.
All conference Juwan Morgan was better than our entire frontcourt combined. A Butler backup might start for us.
The objective experts are picking us to finish way worse. And I fully agree with them.
It sounds like the Freshman from Valparaiso Purdue has could be just as good as Edwards. A guy I work with went to the Hall of Fame Classic in New Castle last year, mostly to watch TJD, but he talked even more highly of that kid than he did of Davis afterwards.
The roster this year is better than Archie’s first year. Morgan and Rob are better than any players on the roster this year, but we’re better at every other position and have more depth.
I do think Archie should have won 20 games his first year if DD and Hartman were healthy the entire year.
Last edited:
He wasn't All-Conference heading in to his junior year, far from it - he also was the B1G Most Improved Player that year. I highly doubt you called it that he would be. So it's possible one of the players on this team makes a big jump to become All-Conference.
Frikkenfrakken, check out page 208 of the "Knight, My Story" book where Knight said exactly what I and others in this thread are saying about Wittman and Kitchel and 3-point shooting in the 1982-83 season. I'm not sure that I can link it due to copyrights.
I guess we will see. The objective experts agree we will be worse.
Those same experts many times rank teams based on the previous season's results.
Similar threads
