Acre Pro Tuesday Night Live Replay: Purdue basketball talk with GoldandBlack.com's Brian Neubert

We talked Purdue hoops and recruiting in this Tuesday night version of AcrePro.com chat. Brian Neubert and Alan Karpick are hosts.

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ON PURDUE BASKETBALL (excerpt from Brian Neubert’s column)

Purdue was never losing that Oakland game Friday night, but for a while the score was close and by virtue of a last-second dunk, the Grizzlies wound up playing the No. 1 team in America within 10. Subsequently, digital commenters on our many platforms lost their minds — and probably their money because gambling and online emotion are very often linked these days — and come Monday, Purdue dropped out of the No. 1 spot in the AP poll, which doesn’t really matter, but illustrates a strange eagerness, which isn’t new, to dunk on the Boilermakers when they fail. As I’ve said for weeks, the YouTube crowd and Twitter content community already have their “Time to worry about Purdue?” graphics ready to roll. Watch. I have no horse in this race, but that’s my observation at least.

But context and perspective are really important, more so in November than any other time.

• Breaking news: Not having one of the best players in the country through these first two games is not insignificant. Purdue shouldn’t need to Trey Kaufman-Renn to defeat Evansville or Oakland and it didn’t. Contrary to popular belief, the record says 2-0. But having him sure would have made it easier to start better or pull away from Oakland sooner, the sort of cosmetics that don’t matter but do shape perception and trigger either over-confidence or outright panic. The difference between Michigan scoring 2,000 points on Oakland and Purdue only getting 87 was the Wolverines made their early threes and Purdue didn’t. Kaufman-Renn would have really mattered there as an alternate option, but still, give Purdue those shots every night and it’s gonna get a hundred more often than not.

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• Oakland is going to be an NCAA Tournament team, I bet. Winning by only 10 won’t look so bad come March. Kudos to Greg Kampe for scheduling a “Saw” movie every year in non-conference.

• Purdue is not a perfect team. If you thought they were, well, that’s on you. There are no perfect teams, and no one starts seasons as their best selves. The Boilermakers have experience, continuity, a couple elite guys, theoretical-for-the-time-being depth and seemingly all the right pieces, but this was a group that didn’t win much of anything last season. I believe Purdue can be a national title contender in time and should win the Big Ten, but every team has a process.

Purdue has to play better and embrace the vulnerabilities that have presented themselves, and there’s just as good a chance that they are easy fixes as fatal flaws.

The rebounding will get better. Purdue is basically playing guards at forward right now; the lineups you’ve been rolling with for 40 minutes maybe account for 10 most nights once Kaufman-Renn is back. The defensive piece of it, there’s upside there, and in-season improvement has generally been Purdue’s thing. Purdue has to find a balance between aggressiveness and containment, and this virtually entirely new frontcourt (until Kaufman-Renn returns) needs to keep figuring out its fit.

Purdue needs to pick it up, for certain, but doubt is good, even if it’s misguided, premature or stripped of context.

I’m the only voice out there reminding people that Purdue didn’t win anything last year before it was crowned No. 1 now. Purdue’s collective personality is such that it has thrived off doubt. Being told how great you are all the time, with cameras following you everywhere for the highlights, that’s what Nick Saban would call “rat poison.”

The doubters are no more.

Sitting in the media room after that game waiting on Matt Painter for an inordinate period of time, it sure seemed like arson was being committed below the shorts of the then-No. 1 team in America. Things are not, nor are they ever, as bad as over-reaction take-culture will have you believe, but perhaps that fire is exactly what this very promising team needs.

Maybe Purdue loses at Alabama. I have no idea.

Or maybe it comes out with an understanding that five guys on the floor must occupy five bodies on the glass. Maybe Kaufman-Renn is back and changes everything. Maybe they just make their first-half threes.

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