Previewing the 2023-24 Purdue Basketball Season
In the month of October, The Floor Slap will be launching our College Basketball Preview. We will be previewing all 14 Big Ten Teams, making predictions, covering the biggest storylines across the country and more! Follow @thefloorslap to stay up to date on all our Basketball coverage before the season tips off on November 5th.
by Jordan Beckley
Mad about March
When the buzzer sounded on that Friday night in Columbus and the impossible had happened with no. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson winning 63-58 over no. 1 seed Purdue, several different things were finalized.
Obviously, it ended Purdue’s amazing 2022-23 campaign in the most bitter way possible. The Big Ten Champion in both the regular season and tournament had one of the school’s best seasons ever end in the school’s most unceremonious exit in a history of infamous March exits.
It also finalized several things for the next season as well.
First, it guaranteed that Purdue and Zach Edey would be the butt of every joke for the foreseeable future. It cemented that no one would take anything that Purdue does in the regular season seriously. Purdue could go 33-0 with 20+ Big Ten wins, a Big Ten double and it wouldn’t matter.
The Boilermakers have been permanently labeled chokers.
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All that adds up to the upset locking in one more thing: this season will entirely be about Purdue and Matt Painter proving everybody wrong.
Nobody will respect Purdue this season no matter what. Get ready for every student section chanting choker, 16 seed, Fairleigh Dickinson, etc. Prepare yourself for every comment to say that “He is just tall, he’s not good” about (a nearly unanimous) National Player of the Year Zach Edey. The press and coaches might continue to sing the praises of Matt Painter, but to every casual College Basketball fan he is the worst coach in the country.
Purdue has a loaded schedule that can verify themselves as a one of the country’s best. Purdue will be in the Maui Invitational along with teams like Kansas, Tennessee, Gonzaga, and Marquette. The Boilermakers compete against Arizona and Alabama on neutral sites this year. Potentially the last ever Gavitt Games have Purdue playing in the Cintas Center against Xavier. Add in a grueling Big Ten schedule and we will see exactly what Purdue is made of this year.
However, no one will care about the 30+ game sample size of the whole season. The only games that matter will be the 1-6 games Purdue plays in late March and early April.
It doesn’t matter that Purdue beat Gonzaga, Duke and Marquette in nonconference, won the Big Ten by 3 games, or that they won the Big Ten Tournament last year. Obviously, they sucked! They lost to Fairleigh Dickinson!
Sadly, Purdue will only be judged by March Madness and at this point it’s hard to argue that it isn’t fair.
Under Matt Painter, the Boilermakers have continued to improve steadily and jumped up a tier in College Basketball.
The Old Gold and Black have gone from a perennially ranked team to one who doesn’t leave the Top 10. Painter has brought up the program to the highest tier of College Basketball; the results in March just don’t show it.
Purdue opens as a unanimous Top 3 team in every poll out there and is even no. 1 on Kenpom according to his divine algorithm.
All of it pointless until Purdue proves their postseason punchline is wrong.
All season Boiler fans will hear the same things about what Purdue can’t do:
Matt Painter can’t win in March. Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer aren’t NBA players and you can’t win a Title with guards who aren’t pros. You can’t run your offense through the post, guards have to be your best player not a center. All they have is Zach Edey and nobody else.
So, the goal is simple for Matt Painter and Purdue: redeem themselves by making (at least) the Final Four.
Roster Breakdown
Guards: Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer, Lance Jones
Braden Smith was so good right away that people don’t even remember how much of a surprise he was. Smith was a barely recruited guard who nobody expected to start. Well, Smith started all 35 games and averaged 10/4/4 as a freshman. People often say that the biggest leap comes from your freshman to sophomore year. Will that happen for Smith or could he stagnate like Chucky Hepburn did after starting all of his freshman year?
One of the observations from Purdue’s foreign tour was the wide range for Smith. He opened the tour scoring over 25 points. In the next scrimmage, he had 0 points but put up 10 assists, 10 boards, and 5 steal type numbers. Maybe he was challenging himself against weaker competition, but Smith’s ability to consistently score and make defenses respect him will be imperative for Purdue’s success.
The other big freshman impact guard last year was Fletcher Loyer who started all 35 games as well while averaging 11 ppg, 2.4 apg, and 32.6% from three. Loyer was poised to be an All-Big Ten type performer at one point in the season. From the Gonzaga game to the win in East Lansing, Loyer averaged 14.7 ppg, 2.7 apg on 38.9% from 3 and 44.6% from inside the arc over 14 games. Purdue went 13-1 in that stretch.
The unspoken issue with Purdue’s end to the year was Loyer’s struggles from then on. In the final 17 games, Loyer averaged 8.4 points on 39.5% from 2 and an unacceptable 24.2% from 3. The freshman stalled out with just 6 games in double figures in the final 17 after doing that 13 times in the first 18. Purdue finished 12-5 in that stretch. Loyer’s ability to shoot the three is an indispensable need for the Boilermakers to be able to win.
The final guard is Southern Illinois transfer Lance Jones. The lone transfer into West Lafayette, Jones is a wildcard for Purdue. The expectation is that Jones will be a defensive stalwart and secondary ball handler. Jones will be a backup point and backup 2 for much of his roles, but don’t be surprised if there are some minutes with all three of these guards sharing the floor.
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Wings: Ethan Morton, Mason Gillis, Myles Colvin, Camden Heide, Brian Waddell
All of the questions about Purdue are at the 3 and the 4. Who will Painter go with? The various combinations all offer different looks.
Ethan Morton is a senior who started most of last season that offers defense and suboptimal shooting. I’m not sure any Purdue fan want’s him to start again. Mason Gillis has only ever played the 4, but could he get some minutes at the 3? The streaky shooting Gillis has yet to develop anything consistent within the arc, but is a brutally tough rebounder and defender. Brian Waddell was a true freshman whose minutes were cut after non-conference last year. He had some good showings overseas and if he can shoot the three his length and footspeed is intriguing.
The newcomers are Myles Colvin and redshirt freshman Camden Heide. After the FDU upset, Matt Painter talked about how he made the mistake of not being athletic enough. Colvin and Heide are here to fix that. Both of them offer more slashing to the basket than is customary at Purdue. Both are at risk of hitting their head on the rim when they jump up for dunks. Critically, both have the potential to be good shooters but that might be more a wait and see skill than a proven one at this point.
All of these guys will be getting minutes in non-conferece along with Caleb Furst at the 3 and 4. It is crowded field and eventually Painter will have to shrink that group of six to be closer to four. I don’t think there is another position battle in the Big Ten that you should hone in on more than Purdue’s forwards.
Bigs: Zach Edey, Trey Kaufman-Renn, Caleb Furst, Will Berg
If you have heard about anything in College Basketball you know who Zach Edey is. Let’s just repeat his numbers again in case you forgot. 22.3 ppg on 60.7 FG%, 12.9 rebounds including 5.5 offensive rebounds per game, and 2.1 blocks per game while only averaging 1.9 fouls per game. This dude is a monster. The dumbest complaint about Edey is also why there are no worries about him repeating his All-American performance: Edey is just too big. The Big Maple isn’t getting any smaller and neither should his statline.
Painter teased for like the third time in four years of playing his two centers at the same time this offseason. Trey Kaufmann-Renn has been amazing apparently and could honestly be the 2nd or 3rd best center in the conference, but he will not be playing next to Edey. For the 10 minutes that the NPOY isn’t on the floor, opponents will not be getting a break as the redshirt-sophomore TKR will look to punish backups or exhausted starters.
Caleb Furst is in the big section instead of the wings because he will exclusively play at PF. The 6’10” junior is oozing with potential, but hasn’t put it all together yet. Jaden Ivey and Zach Edey dominating the offense can stunt that in supporting players sometimes. Still, Furst needs to partner a more efficient three point jumper at the top of the key and the corner with his hard cuts and extreme post-efficiency. If Painter wants to be more athletic, Colvin and Furst cutting off ball for easy dunks and drilling wide-open treys is the dream.
Finally, Will Berg is just a non-factor because of the two great centers in front of him. At some points in the season you might see the 7′ red head come onto the court and make a play in a blowout, but that will likely be the extent of his redshirt freshman season impact.
Matt Painter’s master plan offense was simple last year. Have the best, most efficient player in the country post up and have shooting around him. That gameplan frustrated and stumped top coaches in the country like Mark Few and Tom Izzo. The problems came when Loyer and other Boilers went cold. Purdue went 5-26 against Fairleigh Dickinson. If they hit three more threes (just 30% overall!) the Boilermakers win the game.
Purdue is a proven commodity this year. Everyone knows what Zach Edey can and will do. Rotation guys like Caleb Furst, Mason Gillis, and Braden Smith are at the minimum will play at the same level as last season. Where Coach Painter’s team can become a true National Title contender is if other players make leaps around Edey.
Can Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer make the sophomore leap and be All-Conference type players and not just better-than-they-should-be freshman? If Trey Kaufman-Renn is awesome, how much of an impact can he make? What can the dynamic wings bring in their first year between Camden Heide and Myles Colvin?
There is a version of Purdue this year that is better than the 29 win team Big Ten Champion. There is also a version where nobody makes a leap and the rotations never get figured out. After a fairly weak season at the top last year, if Purdue stays the same that team likely gets passed over.
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Only One Way
The final story that was locked in the second the buzzer flashed for the Boilers was the season-long comparisons to 2019 Virginia. Yes, Virginia lost to a 16 seed and won the championship the next season. Every play-by-play covering their first or only Purdue game will bring up Kyle Guy, DeAndre Hunter, Ty Jerome and Tony Bennett and how they redeemed themselves. I’m already sick of it, but hopefully it will replace the tired chatter of how Edey used to play baseball and hockey!
It’s an easy comparison, especially given how much Purdue brings back and the fact that they should be a Top 10 team all year. However, the history of huge tournament upsets isn’t necessarily optimistic for it to be a galvanizing force for team morale.
In 1999, Stanford was a no. 2 seed that lost to a plucky 10 seed Gonzaga. Jarron Collins, Jason Collins, and Mark Madsen all returned next year to win the Pac-10, earn a no. 1 seed and … get upset again in the second round. After losing to St. Peter’s two years ago, Kentucky went 22-12 last year and exited in the second round. When John Thompson III and Georgetown lost to Florida Gulf Coast as a no. 2 seed in 2013, they missed the tournament the next year and JT3 never really recovered. Similarly, Frank Haith and Missouri were geared to be a College Basketball player for years and it all went off the rails after losing to no. 15 seed Norfolk State.
So will this loss bring the Boilers together for a special run? Or will it tear apart their confidence and ultimately sink them? Believe it or not history points to losing to a very low seed as a bad thing. Yet, there is a reason why people will bring up Virginia.
Deep down, most people know that Purdue was good last year and that Zach Edey is actually great. It’s just fun to make fun of the already tortured Purdue fanbase. They know that this same Purdue team brings all this talent back and is capable of doing the same thing the Cavaliers did in 2019.
That silent understanding of how good Purdue really is why they’re the favorite to win the Big Ten again this year. If the Boilers do win the conference again it would be their 4th Big Ten Title in 8 seasons. For a school that is extremely proud of their record for most Big Ten Championships, it is universally understood (by fans, coaches, and players) that isn’t the goal.
There is only one thing that can save this Purdue team. At a minimum, Coach Painter and his team must make the Final Four to redeem themselves.
Purdue is one of the best programs in College Basketball with some of the most devoted fans and they haven’t reached the Final Four since 1980. In 2019, Virginia advanced to their redeeming Final Four by Mamadi Diakite’s miracle shot to force overtime against Carsen Edwards, Matt Painter and Purdue.
Forty years of waiting, falling short, and being the butt of all the jokes, Purdue hopes they get their miracle March moment and redeem themselves.
Read more about Purdue Basketball on the Floor Slap:
Observations from all 7 Big Ten Foreign Tours
An Amateur Scouting Report for the 2023 Big Ten Basketball Class: Part 3