Purdue Basketball Preview: Game 2 vs. Northern Kentucky
After winning its season opener Monday night, Purdue looks to show game-to-game improvement Friday night as it hosts Northern Kentucky in Mackey Arena.
DETAILS: Friday, Nov. 8, 2024 | 7 p.m. ET | TV: B1G+ (J.J. Palmer, Max Buryl) | Radio: Purdue Radio Network
PURDUE (1-0): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS
NORTHERN KENTUCKY (0-1): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS
A FEW THINGS ABOUT PURDUE
• Purdue is retooling a bit after losing two-time Player-of-the-Year, but has an excellent three-man core to build around in juniors Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn. Smith is the preseason Big Ten Player-of-the-Year.
• The Boilermakers were picked as the preseason favorite to win the newly expanded Big Ten. It would be their third title in as many years.
• Purdue lost a charity exhibition at Creighton and won a preseason game vs. Grand Valley State before this opener.
• Purdue hasn’t lost a November game since 2020 a run of 22 straight wins.
• The Boilermakers beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Monday night 90-73. Improvement for Purdue must lie in limiting turnovers, a real issue in Game 1, as 16 of them led to 19 Corpus Christi points. The Islanders scored 46 points in the paint, obviously a defensive red flag.
ABOUT THIS GAME
• Northern Kentucky opened its season with a 74-62 loss at Florida State. in which it was 7-of-28 from three and committed 22 turnovers.
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• Grad student Trey Robinson is Northern Kentucky’s top returnee after averaging 12 points and seven rebounds a year ago.
• NKU guard Bryce Darbyshire was a teammare of Purdue’s Raleigh Burgess at Sycamore High School in Cincinnati.
• Coach Darrin Horn previously was the head coach at Western Kentucky and South Carolina. He’s won 20 or more games in three of his five seasons at Northern Kentucky, part of the Horizon League. They made the NCAA Tournament in 2023.
THREE KEYS FOR PURDUE
| TURNOVERS | HELP D AND COMMUNICATION | REBOUNDING |
| Purdue’s turnovers in the opener made that game close and compromised its defense. | The Boilermakers are a work in progress defensively, with cohesiveness and chemistry most notably developing. | A huge priority for Purdue this season, but an area where it should be able to turn the screws on buy-game opponents. |
GOLDANDBLACK.COM PREDICTION: PURDUE 87, NORTHERN KENTUCKY 65
Purdue has some really high-quality buy-game opponents coming up with both Northern Kentucky, then Yale. But obviously this will be a tall order for any underdog. Unless Purdue goes turnover crazy, it’s difficult to imagine the visitors scoring enough to keep up here.
