The Boilermakers’ head coach offered thoughts on the Hoosiers ahead of the rivalry matchup.
When Purdue’s Matt Painter is previewing an opponent for his team, he always goes back to one saying.
“Expect everybody to be at their best.”
That’s, again, not something reserved for Indiana. But for this specific Hoosiers roster, it becomes a bit more of a point of emphasis.
It’s no secret to anyone anywhere that Indiana has failed to live up to the promises of the preseason once again. The Hoosiers assembled one of the most talented rosters not just in the Big Ten but all of college basketball and find themselves right around the middle of the pack in the league with a chance to go under .500 with another loss.
But, again, Indiana has talent. There’s a multitude of players that have it within them to go off on any given night and put up a good enough performance to lead the team to victory.
Multiple members of the starting lineup including Myles Rice, Mackenzie Mgbako and Malik Reneau have gone off for 30 or more points in their careers. Starting center Oumar Ballo is capable of doing the same and did so in international play and reserve guard Kanaan Carlyle put up 31 points against Rice’s Washington State last season.
Painter is aware of that, to the point he even noted the game, wherein Rice put on an offensive showing of his own with 35 on the scoreboard. He’s having Purdue prepare as though each of Indiana’s talented pieces are going to be able to put together such a performance, just like the Boilermakers do for every other team on the schedule.
“That’s what we have to look at, is all those guys having their best game at the same time,” Painter said. “It just keeps you honest. Even though, like, a guy doesn’t shoot threes very much or whatever, just don’t hand him a three.”
He went on to note that Purdue has seen Ballo before when the Boilermakers faced off against his Arizona Wildcats last season.
“We’ve seen Ballo dominate a game, we’ve seen Malik Reneau dominate a game, we’ve seen Mgbako go off for twenty-five,” Painter said. “I just mentioned two guys [Rice and Carlyle] that scored thirty in the same game.”
Painter made additional note of Indiana’s lineup flexibility between going with two bigs with Ballo at center and Reneau at the four to going smaller with Luke Goode replacing Reneau as something Purdue is going to need to be ready to guard.