The Purdue Boilermakers fought off a valiant effort from Penn State to move to 5-0 in the B1G and push the Nittany Lions to 0-5 as well. It was a much more difficult game than most expected as Penn State shot 12% above their season average behind the arc on their way to making twelve shots. Penn State was able to seemingly counter every time Purdue was on the cusp of breaking away and taking full control of the game as the Boilers won by only 8 after being favored by 21.5 at the start of the game.
Let’s jump into our numbers as the Boilers will look to move to 6-0 in the final game of three game home stand against a very good Iowa Hawkeyes team.
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914
With his outburst of 14 assists, Braden Smith now stands at 914 career assists. With seventeen assured games remaining and Smith just 162 assists away from the NCAA all-time record of 1,076, he will need to average 9.5 per game to break the record. If Purdue can make the B1G Tourney Final and the Sweet 16, that would give Smith four additional games and drop his necessary average to 7.7. We are 100% watching an NCAA record being broken.
39.8%
Boilermaker fans are clearly aware that Fletcher Loyer is going through a bit of a struggle with his shooting from behind the arc. The moans and groans have become pretty audible for the four year starter but that is largely because of the way he had started the season. Through the first seven games of the season, Loyer shot a blistering 52.2% (24/46) for the best shooting stretch of his career. Since that eighth game against Rutgers until the Washington game, a span of eight games, Loyer shot a pretty disappointing 15/54 for 27.8%.
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Loyer seemed to turn a bit of corner against Penn State as he shot 4/8 from behind the arc and that would raise his season average to 39.8%. Even through that poor stretch, Loyer’s shooting only dropped to 39% and he found other ways to score. In fact, it could be said that the struggles Loyer had behind the arc may have made him a more difficult scout for opposing teams because he flashed a higher ability to get into the paint and finish.
4
For the first time all season, the bench was really a letdown against Penn State. In what has been a typically strong part of Purdue’s overall effectiveness, the bench players that include Mayer, Jacobsen, Harris, and Benter only accounted for 4 points. That is clearly a season low for a group that has, at times, gone for much, much more (45 against Kent State for example). Purdue’s got as good of a starting five as any other team but where it needs to really cut other teams deep is with those four guys being able to be scoring threats.
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8.33
CMP has long been a proponent that the way this team is built around the skills of Smith, Loyer, and TKR is one who can have games like they did against Penn State where they turned the ball over a program record low of 3 times. When you couple that with a game where Purdue shared the ball in the manner that they did and garnered 25 assists, a program record of an assists to turnover ratio of 8.33 happened.
50
Purdue has, over the course of CMP’s tenure, been known for a program that wants to get the ball inside and score at or near the rim. Against Penn State, they very nearly broke a program record for paint points with 50 (8th all time). Purdue still showed a good amount of shooting from the outside going 11/29 (37.9%) but they were able to break the Penn State defense down and get two feet in the paint or Cluff and TKR were able to get putbacks off rebounds.
5
Purdue has started the B1G season 5-0 for the first time since the 2017-2018 season when the Boilers started 12-0. That group won the B1G with a record of 17-3 with those three losses coming consecutively. Purdue will square off against #19 Iowa, although that ranking may change by the time the two play. That will close up their 3-game home stand before the Boilers go to visit UCLA and USC on their west coast swing. There is no reason to think Purdue couldn’t be 8-0 in their only matchup against the Illini for the season at Mackey.
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15-1
With their 15-1 start to the season, that matches a program record to the start of the season. That is the sixth different time Purdue has achieved that mark and the third time under CMP (25-26, 22-23, 10-11).
8
With his fourteen assists, Braden now has 8 career games where he has hit that mark or more. To put that in perspective, Magic Johnson has the second most in B1G history with three. When your setting records and your closest competition is more than twice the number away AND it is Magic Johnson, I think you’ve got an argument of one of the best B1G players of all time.
1,500
Loyer has long flashed his scoring prowess and against the Nittany Lions where he scored 17 points, he surpassed the 1,500 point mark. He is officially at 1,505 and could very well end up finding himself into the top-10 in program history. That mark is held by Walter Jordan who scored 1,813 career points from 1974 to 1978 and with Loyer averaging 14 points per game this season, he would end up at roughly 1,799 points if the Boilers can get to twenty-one games (B1G Tourney final and Sweet 16).
4…Again
Although the bench struggled to only grab four points, as we mentioned above, 4 of the starters scored at least 16 points. That is the first time that has happened since March 2nd, 2002 against Penn State of all teams.
99
For the 99th straight game, Purdue fans sold our Mackey Arena. That’s not only a show of how good Purdue has been but a testament to how great Boilermaker fans truly are!
