Purdue Basketball Preview: Game 3 vs. Yale
Purdue aims to improve to 3-0 on the season heading into some monster games, as it hosts Yale Monday night.
DETAILS: Monday, Nov. 11, 2024 | 8 p.m. ET | TV: BTN (Kevin Kugler, Robbie Hummel) | Radio: Purdue Radio Network
PURDUE (2-0): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS
YALE (1-1): 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 23 straight wins.
• The Boilermakers just lost freshman starting center Daniel Jacobsen to a broken tibia in his right leg, likely for the season. Will Berg will presumably move into the starting five.
• Fletcher Loyer leads Purdue through two games, averaging 18.5 points. He is 7-of-10 from three-point range.
ABOUT THIS GAME
• Yale is a consistent winner in the Ivy League and frequent NCAA Tournament program, making it last season as a 13 seed and beating fourth-seeded Auburn to cap a 23-win season.
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• Coach James Jones is in his 26th year at Yale and just three wins shy of 400. He’s one of the most respected coaches in America.
• Purdue and Yale met in the opening round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament in Milwaukee, a 78-56 Boilermaker win.
• Yale senior guard John Poulakidas is averaging 20 points through two games. He made 83 three-pointers last season, a school record, and is shooting 40 percent from deep in his career. He would have crossed paths with Loyer at the Jayson Tatum Elite Camp this summer.
The Bulldogs’ top scorer from last season, 7-footer Danny Wolf, transferred to Michigan.
• Guard Bez Mbeng is averaging 17 through two games, a win over Quinnapiac and a loss at UIC.
THREE KEYS FOR PURDUE
| DEFENSIVE PROGRESS | TURNOVERS | REBOUNDING |
| Purdue has to keep improving its cohesiveness and communication on defense. It’s a glaring issue. | Any every-game issue until proven otherwise, Purdue’s ball security on offense relates directly to its defense, too. | The offensive glass has been kind to Purdue, but against smaller teams that shoot a lot of threes, those long defensive rebounds are key. |
GOLDANDBLACK.COM PREDICTION: PURDUE 75, YALE 60
Yale will pretty methodical and make this a low-possessions game, so efficiency and patience come to the forefront for Purdue, as does its ability to force shooters to be inefficient.
