From a distance, this weekend seemed like a relatively unremarkable start for the Big Ten. The teams that were expected to win won, and those that were expected to lose lost. But if you take a closer look, you’ll find that one team, with the help of an especially impressive freshman, turned some heads with its dominant weekend play. Purdue looked nothing like the team picked to finish 11th in the Big Ten, as predicted in the Preseason Media Poll, easily disposing of both of its opponents by a combined 60 points. Outstanding performances from certain players, especially freshman guard Vince Edwards, fueled Purdue’s offense to an average of 78.5 points in the two games, giving Boilermakers fans and some prognosticators reevaluating the trajectory of their season.

Vince Edwards has led Purdue to their hot start. (Jerry Schultheiss).

Edwards, a little-known freshman, was awarded this season’s inaugural Big Ten Freshman of the Week – ahead of a number of other high-profile freshmen like Ohio State’s D’Angelo Russell – after averaging 19.5 points (including a 26-point outing against IUPUI), 8.0 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks in his first two games. The freshman was so unheralded as a recruit that he failed to make both Scout’s and Rivals’s Top 100 rankings. The Middletown, Ohio, native has been a stat stuffer so far, but he hasn’t been the only major contributor. Sophomore Kendall Stephens has been deadly from the outside, evidenced by his 9-of-13 shooting from deep and 17.0 PPG average. A.J. Hammons already has eight blocks, if little else, and sophomore Raphael Davis and freshman Isaac Haas brought excellent performances to the season opener – Davis chipped in 13 points, while Haas contributed 11 points and eight rebounds. The Boilermakers’ hot start has been an impressive team effort thus far, which is in stark contrast to the underachieving unit we saw come out of the gates last year.

While it’s only been two games, the Boilermakers’ inspired opening weekend play has to be welcome news to Matt Painter. After six of his first seven seasons in West Lafayette resulted in 20 wins or more, he was awarded a hefty payday in kind, but the 44-year old head coach has since fallen on hard times. After losing his last “Baby Boiler” (his special 2007 recruiting class), Robbie Hummel, Painter has endured two consecutive sub-.500 seasons. He came into this season squarely on the hot seat, and many believed that his uninspiring roster would again finish near the bottom of the conference. If these Boilers can keep up their current play through the next couple of months, they just may end up saving their coach’s job. The next step is to get through Grambling at home on Thursday before a true test on Monday when the Boilermakers travel to the Maui Invitational to face a tough Kansas State team.

Alex Moscoso (170 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2014 at 9:01 am by Alex Moscoso (@AlexPMoscoso) and is filed under big ten, microsites. Tagged: A.J. Hammons, isaac haas, Kendall Stephens, matt painter, purdue, Raphael Davis, vince edwards. 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.