Purdue (#5, West, Portland pod)
vs. Northern Iowa (#12)
Thurs., 3/19 at 2:30 PM
Vegas Line: Purdue, -8

Thanks to Vegas Watch for providing these graphs that measure the moving average of a team’s spread (moving avg.) over time vs. the spread for each individual game (indiv).  If a team’s moving average is higher than zero, then Vegas currently has a higher opinion of them than Pomeroy, and vice versa.

General Profile
Location: West Lafayette, IN
Conference: Big Ten Conference, Automatic Bid
Coach: Matt Painter, 81-49 (60.5%)
08-09 Record: 25-9, 11-7
Last 12 Games: 8-4, 3-game winning streak
Best Win: 72-54, Michigan State, 2/17
Worst Loss: 61-64, Northwestern, 3/4
Off. Efficiency Rating: 110.5, 48th
Def. Efficiency Rating: 86.9, 5th

Nuts n Bolts
Star Player(s): JaJuan Johnson (13. 2 pts, 5.6 reb, 2.1 blk); Robbie Hummel (12.7 pts, 6.9 reb, 2.0 ast); E’Twaun Moore (13.9 pts, 4.8 reb, 3 ast)
Unsung Hero: Chris Kramer (2.2 stl, 2.5 ast)
Potential NBA Draft Pick(s): N/A
Key Injuries: Robbie Hummel, cracked L5 vertebrae
Depth: 31% (167th nationally), percentage of minutes played by reservs
Achilles Heel: Purdue is a streaking shooting team and had a tendency to go cold for minutes at a time during the second half of the Big Ten season…and Purdue is not a deep team
Will Make a Deep Run if…: Moore and Hummel shoot well
Will Make an Early Exit if…: Kramer gets into early foul trouble, Hummel’s back flares up

NCAA History
Last Year Invited: 2008, beaten by Xavier in the round of 32
Streak: 3 years
Best NCAA Finish: 1932 National Champs, 1969 Runner-up, 1980 third-place
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): -0.45. On average the Boilermakers win 0.45 less games than they would be expected to based on their seed compared to historical averages

Other
Six Degrees to Detroit: Purdue’s football team won the Motor City Bowl in 2007
Distance to First Round Site: 2,224 miles
School’s Claim to Fame: 22 Purdue alums later became astronauts including Neil Armstrong
School Wishes It Could Forget: Gene Keady’s hairdo…or his post-season woes
Prediction: Purdue’s lack of depth might hurt during the NCAA tournament as Purdue only goes about 8 deep…foul trouble can kill this team defensively, which is Purdue’s strength.  And Big Ten officiating seems to allow a more physical brand of basketball than does much of the nation’s officiating.  Plus, Purdue’s offensive woes have been painful during periods of this season, especially versus zone defenses.  I look for Purdue to lose in the round of 16 versus Uconn as the Huskies depth will come into play in a close, possibly overtime, loss.
Major RTC stories: ATB: ACC & Big 10 Deadlocked 3-3

Preview written by boilerdowd of BoiledSports.com

rtmsf (3998 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 9:31 pm by rtmsf and is filed under 2009 Tourney Preview. Tagged: 2009 Tourney Preview, big 10, chris kramer, e'twaun moore, gene keady, jajuan johnson, matt painter, michigan state, northern iowa, northwestern, purdue, robbie hummel, xavier. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.