It\u2019s been a rough few games for the Boilermakers as they\u2019ve needed strong second halves, or even final 10 minutes to beat a number of their recent opponents. The game against UCLA resulted in them allowing an 8-0 run to finish the game and lose to UCLA. So I wanted to ask the staff about a burning question among the fandom. The starting lineup isn\u2019t the end all be all but it\u2019s often how Painter signals things need to change. Would you make any changes to the starting lineup? Why or why not?<\/p>\n
As I said in the question, the starting lineup isn\u2019t the end all be all especially with the way Matt Painter coaches. So often the true measure of who Matt Painter trusts lies in who finishes games. Painter is also very loyal to his starters and generally doesn\u2019t change the lineup all too often. When he changes it he usually has a good reason. Right now there\u2019s no doubt that TKR and Loyer are struggling. Loyer\u2019s three point shooting, the main reason he\u2019s out there, has been around 25% over the last 8 games. Does that mean he needs to replace? I\u2019m not so sure. Then there\u2019s TKR who just hasn\u2019t seemed\u2026right\u2026over the last handful of games. He\u2019s still a potential All-American but he just needs to find it again.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a long winded way of saying no, but that there might need to be a quicker leash on some folks. Guys like Jack Benter, Omer Mayer, and maybe even Liam Murphy should be able to come in and play some minutes if starters aren\u2019t getting the job done. Benter is the guy who likely would be the biggest beneficiary of any changes that are made. So for now, if Purdue can turn it around against Illinois tomorrow I think no change is necessary. If however, Illinois takes care oft he Boilermakers I might think differently.<\/p>\n
Personally, I do not see a reason to sound the alarm over a 2 point loss on the road.<\/p>\n
3 of the 5 starters have played so much together you can almost guarantee that they will work this out. The troubling stat is the lack of efficiency from deep now.<\/p>\n
Loyer is really struggling, but if History repeats itself, which it has with this slump, it also shows he catches fire soon too.<\/p>\n
I am team, keep it the same. Smith is banged up, Loyer and Renn are in a funk. They\u2019ll shake it off (Taylor Swift).<\/p>\n
Honestly? As much as I hate to say it, maybe give Benter a start over TKR. TKR is clearly struggling right now. The UCLA game was a little better than USC, but Purdue\u2019s second unit seemed to do a little better when Benter was in there and he has had some pretty positive moments. That will never happen though and we know what we have with our starting five. It is still a better starting five than 99% of other teams in college basketball. TKR and Fletch are just slumping right now and htey will turn it on.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think it\u2019s necessary. This is a group led by 4 seniors and it feels like a shake up would cause more confusion and panic amongst others than be helpful. While it\u2019s clear that Purdue hasn\u2019t been as dominant as expected lately, they are still winning games and let\u2019s face it: the Big Ten is a hard conference to play in. I think Purdue will be just fine come March and the senior leaders will help pick up the pace moving forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a rough few games for the Boilermakers as they\u2019ve needed strong second halves, or even final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,16677],"class_list":{"0":"post-556814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-purdue-mens-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115947712281377506","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}