Purdue Basketball Preview: Game 5 at #15 Marquette
Coming off a win over No. 2 Alabama, Purdue goes on the road for the first time this regular regular season,
DETAILS: Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2024 | 9 p.m. ET | TV: FS1 (Jason Benetti, Bill Raftery) | Radio: Purdue Radio Network
PURDUE (4-0): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS
MARQUETTE (4-0): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS
A FEW THINGS ABOUT PURDUE
• Purdue hasn’t lost a non-conference game since 2020, a run of 39 straight wins.
• Trey Kaufman-Renn has been playing more and more center for Purdue the past two games, highlighting some of his strengths but also creating an opportunity for Camden Heide, who has responded by making three threes the past two games while averaging 13.3 rebounds per 40 minutes, including eight in less than 24 minutes vs. Alabama.
After putting 26 on Alabama, Kaufman-Renn is now averaging a team-best 18 points.
• Purdue is shooting 46 percent from three-point range, good for fifth nationally, led by Fletcher Loyer‘s respectable 71 percent.
• Strangely, this will be the fifth meeting between these teams in eight years. Purdue has beaten Marquette each of the past two seasons, but anything but easily.
In 2022, Purdue won 75-70 in Mackey Arena, as part of the Gavitt Games, a game that really made a statement about what was to come for Braden Smith, a he took over a close game in the final stretch.
A year ago, the Boilermakers beat the Eagles 78-75 in the championship game of the Maui Invitational in Honolulu.
There’s no Zach Edey or Tyler Kolek anymore, but there are a lot of players left for both these teams who played in both those prior games, really unusual for this modern state of college basketball.
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• It’s too early in the season for any of these stats to really matter, but Purdue is third nationally in offensive efficiency per KenPom.
• Foul shooting is a bit of an issue early, as Purdue is only shooting 68-and-a-half percent, a number that might be warped some by center Will Berg getting to the line quite a bit for a player who’s not really a featured offensive piece.
ABOUT THIS GAME
• Veteran Kam Jones is erupting as a senior, averaging 25 points thus far and shooting 55 percent from three. Marquette has moved him this season into more of a lead/point guard sort of role this season. He’ll be Purdue’s key defensive matchup, as Mark Sears just was.
• The Golden Eagles are coming off a Big Ten win, winning 78-74 at Maryland.
• Marquette has not shot the ball terribly well to begin the year, just 30-some percent from three, but Purdue knows as well as anyone what Jones and forward David Joplin (just 21 percent thus far) can do.
THREE KEYS FOR PURDUE
| REBOUNDING EFFORT | TURNOVERS | DRIBBLE D AND FOULS |
| Purdue was inspired down the stretch vs Alabama and again Marquette’s four-out-type personnel, this is critical. | Marquette likes to press and trap and change defenses, putting an onus on Braden Smith, but also the freshmen guards. Purdue beat Alabama because it only turned the ball over three times. That was its best defense. | Same stuff as it will be every game. Marquette will spread the floor and drive and as Painter says on a daily basis, “You can’t live in help.” |
GOLDANDBLACK.COM PREDICTION: PURDUE 74, MARQUETTE 71
No real reason except for that picking against the team that’s won 39 straight non-conference games and has experienced success each of the past two seasons against many of these same Marquette players seems hard to justify. Yeah, the road, but Purdue may have gotten that out of its system at Creighton.
