GoldandBlack.com Analysis: Purdue's exhibition win over Truman State

It wasn’t relevant context to what lies ahead for Purdue, but the Boilermakers looked good Wednesday night in their 2022-2023 Mackey Arena debut, a 102-57 exhibition win over Truman State. Here, we break down three key points from the preseason win.

GREAT START FOR PURDUE

Look, the exhibition/scrimmage season doesn’t matter in a bit in the big picture and will probably have long been forgotten about in a month. Remember when Purdue lost to Providence behind closed doors a year ago, then was ranked No. 1 in the country a few weeks later.

These things are just as likely to wind being punchlines as predictive.

That said, you couldn’t have hoped for more from Purdue than what you get through these two dry runs.

Purdue spent so much time in preseason practice preparing to face pressure, expecting people to try to light up freshman guards Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer. Cincinnati tried. Purdue chased the Bearcats right out of it en route to a one-sided win, something that was probably fun in the moment but also heartening later this month when Purdue has to play at Florida State. Having experienced some success against an opponent like that, even in a game that didn’t count, that can’t not matter.

Further, by some accounts, Purdue wasn’t great in halfcourt offensive execution against Cincinnati, part of the reason Zach Edey was 3-of-10 from the floor and generally not what he’ll be expected to be this season.

Very different opponent, but Purdue’s offensive execution to start the Truman game was pristine. Did it ever let up? Four total turnovers and 56-percent shooting suggest not.

Purdue’s going to have some ups and downs while the freshman guards develop before your eyes, people tee off on Edey and the threes are fickle.

But the results from Cincinnati and Truman State really couldn’t have been any better.

PURDUE HAS ENOUGH TO WORK WITH OFFENSIVELY

Who’s going to score for Purdue? Outside of Zach Edey, figuratively and literally.

Fair question, and one there may not be a great answer to right now, because so few players aside from Edey are established in that respect. None are, actually, though Purdue returns some guys who made shots last season as part of a very different offensive hierarchy.

But what you saw against Truman State was a team with raw materials enough to figure this out.

What Purdue has gotten out of Trey Kaufman-Renn these first two outings — 15 points against both Cincinnati and Truman State — can’t be ignored. He looks like he’s becoming a second-unit focal point, and a fascinating presence alongside all the threes, dunks and putbacks Purdue’s gonna get from Caleb Furst this season. Those two might be scary together.

But beyond that, David Jenkins Jr. and Brandon Newman both looked like bucket-getters on Wednesday night, for a team that is going to need perimeter scoring, period, let alone perimeter scoring off the bench. The frontcourt is set. Purdue needs balance to come from the guards and wings, not just from a statistical perspective but from floor-spacing and diversity-of-threats perspectives.

What you saw tonight was pretty much everything Purdue has hoped for offensively from Jenkins and some of the best of Newman, in the very sort of role he’s needed to acclimate to and hasn’t always taken to all that smoothly, i.e. coming off the bench. There’s significance to how he played tonight in that regard, and there’s significance to Jenkins hitting the ground running at Purdue doing what he does best: Scoring.

Purdue wanted a point guard from the portal and instead got Jenkins, who’s a scorer. All involved here may deserve credit for not trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and trying to make him something he’s not. Jenkins will play point guard, but in name only this season. But he can score, and Purdue needs that, too.

PURDUE LOOKED ADVANCED

DON’T WRITE OFF BRIAN WADDELL QUITE YET

By every account, redshirt freshman Brian Waddell‘s trajectory developmentally has been thrown badly off track by injury, more so the ACL injury he sustained around this time a year ago, but then also the ill-timed ankle injury he suffered during preseason practice.

Rough go of things for a player Purdue was smitten with when he first showed up on campus, and should still be.

Waddell looked great against Truman State.

How well he moves relative to how he was prior to the injury, that we can’t credibly comment on, but he sure was effective regardless during the exhibition.

“Brian Waddell looked the best he has in a long time,” Coach Matt Painter said.

Stats are just part of the story, and five points, three assists, two rebounds and a steal in 17 turnover-free minutes was a good day’s work and a step toward him perhaps establishing himself in Purdue’s rotation after all. Painter has made it sound like setbacks have meant that Waddell would more likely need more time to ease into things.

Against Truman State, though, Waddell made a bunch of frill-less but substantive basketball plays, correct reads, proper passes, etc., and looked the part of yet another player who’ll just make for good offense, alongside Braden Smith, Ethan Morton, Fletcher Loyer, etc., and another versatile defensive piece capable of guarding all — well, most — shapes and sizes in a switch-heavy scheme.

Waddell likely has a long way to go still — confidence in his surgically repaired leg is said to have been an on-going issue for him — but if the player you saw tonight was the work-in-progress version, then the finished version Purdue will see one of these days has to be something it’s very much looking forward to.