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Is this a "stretch?"

Are we becoming a team built to take down Purdue?

I can hear the critics now... about KU being "too small!"

The way to beat Purdue is not to match a 7'4" center against Edey. Not gonna happen anyways.

!Zach-Edey-Purdue-Courtesy-@zach_edey-Instagram-1080x640.jpg ↗

And thinking a typical 6'10" center can guard him has become a laugh.

The way to take down Purdue is to be a team with speed and strength at the 5 and have a tough-defending 4 to help double-down on the big guy.

That won't be enough unless you've had a season of dealing with being oversized in the post.

That won't be enough unless you have a defender-national-contender like Kevin as your 4.

That won't be enough unless you have a bench full of bigs ready to come in for short stints to help.

That won't be enough unless you have enough speed to get out and run in the open court to exhaust Edey and create many advantages because he is too slow.

That won't happen unless you become a team who has mastered the ball screen offense and can challenge Eddy in space (remember "x-axis" basketball).

That won't happen unless your 5 men on the court are all playing aggressive defense... including denying easy passes and disrupting the offense.

Come on, folks... use your imagination! We out-rebounded Kentucky... limiting Tshiebwe and team to only 4 offensive rebounds. KJ scored only 1 point less than Tshiebwe! On their home court!

Basketball can often be counter-intuitive... and this is one of those moments. I'm not begging to play Purdue in February. But come March... I'm not so sure they are the team I fear most!

@drgnslayr

I'll never discount Self with days to prepare against anyone.

Think we lucked out against Kentucky on a lot of our post traps, post digs etc that stopped Oscar from having a bigger game. UK didn't make any perimeter shots and if Purdue has 3-4 shooters around that Behemoth, then how do you bring an extra defender in to disrupt?

The guys definitely took coaching to heart regarding rebounding. We'll see if that continues or was more of an one-off

@BeddieKU23

You watch old Villanova games. Jay Wright mastered it because he never had big post presence.

I don't think we were lucky at all against UK. We often made them feel uncomfortable... after the first few minutes of the game.

So many things we can do... a big part of beating Purdue is through our PG. Controlling game pace is crucial. Making it hard for their perimeter players to feed Edey. That's not easy because of his size and the ball can be thrown up high... but doesn't mean we let them run their stuff. If Edey brings the ball down to his chest (he does sometimes), then players like Kevin swipe at it. Heck... Juan might even get a few balls off him.

This wasn't a fluke victory at Kentucky. I felt 100% sure if we came in and executed Self's plan we would leave with a "W." I credit part of that to Cal and how he sucks as a coach. Even Bilas continually called him out for not pushing the ball into the post.

Beating Purdue would require forcing Purdue to play our style of game... which in this case, better be more open-court ball. If you know how to challenge Edey on offense... you can get him in foul trouble. A guy of his size... if he touches a ball handler it is a foul! As KJ progresses in his offense, he shouldn't fear taking the ball right into Edey. We know JWil is up for it. And Kevin, too.

We are a team of survivors... we don't give up! We are also open to adjusting during the game. Is Purdue used to having to adjust during their games? I seriously doubt it. So what happens in March when they get challenged?

@drgnslayr

Personally, I'm not sure Purdue will be the team to beat in March.

I'm more interested in the pieces around Edey then Edey himself. I see a lot of inexperienced guys, mainly their freshman backcourt (they are their 2nd & 3rd leading scorers) and I'm not buying this team for March success. We've seen enough NCAA Tournament's to know you don't rely on freshman and while Edey is the headliner on that team Loyer and Smith lead them in a lot of other categories and run the show.

I think Self has definitely learned a few things from Wright over the years on how to defend certain teams. It worked Saturday as it did against Indiana when we played their star big. I'd be confident in him scheming us to victory.

Calipari messed up by not giving enough touches to their Big in the 2nd half.

Self would have taken the opportunity and thrown it down low to him on every play.

@AsadZ

Yep... remember Self's old "hi-lo?"

@drgnslayr said in Is this a "stretch?":

Is this a "stretch?"

Are we becoming a team built to take down Purdue?

I can hear the critics now... about KU being "too small!"

The way to beat Purdue is not to match a 7'4" center against Edey. Not gonna happen anyways.

!Zach-Edey-Purdue-Courtesy-@zach_edey-Instagram-1080x640.jpg ↗

And thinking a typical 6'10" center can guard him has become a laugh.

The way to take down Purdue is to be a team with speed and strength at the 5 and have a tough-defending 4 to help double-down on the big guy.

That won't be enough unless you've had a season of dealing with being oversized in the post.

That won't be enough unless you have a defender-national-contender like Kevin as your 4.

That won't be enough unless you have a bench full of bigs ready to come in for short stints to help.

That won't be enough unless you have enough speed to get out and run in the open court to exhaust Edey and create many advantages because he is too slow.

That won't happen unless you become a team who has mastered the ball screen offense and can challenge Eddy in space (remember "x-axis" basketball).

That won't happen unless your 5 men on the court are all playing aggressive defense... including denying easy passes and disrupting the offense.

Come on, folks... use your imagination! We out-rebounded Kentucky... limiting Tshiebwe and team to only 4 offensive rebounds. KJ scored only 1 point less than Tshiebwe! On their home court!

Basketball can often be counter-intuitive... and this is one of those moments. I'm not begging to play Purdue in February. But come March... I'm not so sure they are the team I fear most!

Great post! It's funny- I feel the same way about Purdew. Add in Painter's record of NCAA flameouts ( 13 NCAA tournaments- Sweet 16 has been the ceiling), and I'm kind of wanting to be their number #2 if we don't get a #1 seed.

Dang that guy is good! Very athletic for 7' 4"

@Jethro Minor error, but I'm thinking Purdue with that great Carson Edwards team should have prevented Virginia from winning the national championship in the Elite 8. If you recall, Virginia got a game tying buzzer beater because two Purdue guys chased a ball downcourt leaving a Virginia guy open from about 15. He made a miracle shot and Virginia won in OT. If Purdue just stayed home on D there's no way Virginia pulls that off.

Edey was a pain in the Badgers side until last season when we beat purdue twice. Still not sure how, but defense, a Badger staple did the job.

@Jethro here's the play:

I’ve not been a fan of Purdue since Glenn Robinson went absolutely ballistic on Kansas.

@wissox said in Is this a "stretch?":

@Jethro Minor error, but I'm thinking Purdue with that great Carson Edwards team should have prevented Virginia from winning the national championship in the Elite 8. If you recall, Virginia got a game tying buzzer beater because two Purdue guys chased a ball downcourt leaving a Virginia guy open from about 15. He made a miracle shot and Virginia won in OT. If Purdue just stayed home on D there's no way Virginia pulls that off.

Edey was a pain in the Badgers side until last season when we beat purdue twice. Still not sure how, but defense, a Badger staple did the job.

Purdue has had some great teams under Painter. Great players, too. The concern has been the 0-5 record in Sweet 16 games under Painter. Granted, they should've knocked off UVA in that game. That said, if they had won that game, it would've made them 1-4 in S16 games under Painter. This will probably be the year they break thru the S16 bubble. I'm joking when I say we "want" to be their 2 seed. I have no idea how we guard a 7'4" guy. True, we did limit Oscar, but Oscar is 6'9", and a little more manageable.

The Boilers have a legit shot at being the first B1G team to take down a natty in a while. I almost think you give Edey his 40, and guard the heck out of everybody else. I'm sure it's been tried before. They are the best team in the country right now.

@Jethro You're missing my point. Virginia beat Purdue in the Elite 8, you can look it up! So Painter does have a sweet 16 win.

@wissox said in Is this a "stretch?":

we beat purdue

It always hurts just a little bit when you say "we" about the Badgers. I can't do a dual loyalty like you seem to--Michigan always stayed a "they" even though I was there for 3 years!

@wissox said in Is this a "stretch?":

@Jethro You're missing my point. Virginia beat Purdue in the Elite 8, you can look it up! So Painter does have a sweet 16 win.

Oops...you're right. He does have one. So 1-4 in Sweet 16.

@mayjay Another round of the pronoun wars! Spent 3 years in Lawrence and obviously became a huge proud fan. But living in Wisconsin for as long as I did, being able to watch almost all games on TV because of big 10 network and attend games occasionally, not to mention growing up in BIG country, I do have a dual loyalty and have no problem saying we for the Badgers. But I don't always say we, let the record show, and in fact, rarely use we when referring to them here. Maybe some tech geek can figure out how many times I've said we and Badgers together!

@wissox Maybe you not saying it very much is why I noticed it now!

When we moved from Akron to Iowa in 1965 I was in loyalty crisis because I took my Cleveland Indians adulation with me into a small farming town that seemed like it had never heard of sports.

I still thought of Cleveland as "we" even after moving to KC in 1966 (wow, did the Tribe not deserve it). (I literally thought it would be a dusty tumbleweed-ridden Cowtown USA since my only prior exposure was from old Westerns, as well as the song in "Oklahoma" that my parents played nonstop.) In KC by then, no one liked the A's, so I had no sense of that disaster being "my" team.

They left in 1967, the city celebrated, and I still remember the excitement when I opened the KC Times one morning to see the headline over a Joe McGuff story about baseball coming back to KC. My heart was captured as only a pre-teen seeing a birth of a baseball team could be, and they even won their first game....

Those couple of years also exposed me to KU basketball and, of course, the Chiefs. I am proudly "we" for them all!

Sorry for the nostalgia. We have been recovering from that fake virus that somehow made us miserably sick...

@mayjay I like trips down memory lane like that. I've been in so many places and my allegiances have thankfully not followed me. As a boy "we" meant NY Mets and Yankees and Rutgers since I was a jersey kid. But 7th grade move to chicago changed it to local teams and then KU and eventually Wisconsin and then Louisiana and back to Chi where we are now. No Louisiana fandom thankfully, although I was very proud to cheer my students on while playing at LSU and in the National Championship against Bama. Daughters HS friend Boston Scott from Zachary, LA playing in the Super Bowl!

@mayjay you did say recovering? What were your symptoms? Ugh!

@Crimsonorblue22 Covid finally caught us. Symptoms tough for 3 days each (no breathing issues, fortunately). Getting better but I was kind of scared because my wife got a migraine at the beginning and couldn't keep anything down for about 36 hrs. Almost took her to ER for IV fluids on Friday but she started back to normal. Tire easily but have been walking the dog slowly 2x per day (lots of open space so not near anyone).

Can't imagine how miserable people have felt who got it worse!

@mayjay glad to hear that it sounds like youre on the mend.

@mayjay I fear it!

@Crimsonorblue22 I don't blame you. I am diabetic but no apparent heightened severity for me. Just a strong cold without the descent deep into my chest I have occasionally had since my teens. Hot steam helped clear congestion. Went through a few hundred Kleenex. Hoping for no relapse!

Nice ball movement.