The Purdue Boilermakers took another step in the right direction in their quest to win the B1G Title as they beat the Iowa Hawkeyes 78-57 on the road. It’s the fourth straight victories for the Boilers following their three game slide with three of those four victories coming on the road. Purdue was led by their sophomore guards Gicarri Harris and CJ Cox for their fourth straight victory at Carver-Hawkeye Arena as the Boilers will head into one of the biggest conference matchups against likely #1 Michigan on Tuesday.
Let’s get into the numbers!
12
Braden Smith didn’t score a bunch against the Hawkeyes as he hit only one field goal for 5 points but he had a great game orchestrating the offense. While only turning it over one time, Smith accounted for 12 assists and an absurd 12 to 1 assist to turnover ratio. With 222 assists and 74 turnovers Smith now holds a 3 to 1 assist to turnover ratio, good for being top 30 in the country.
With his 12 assists against Iowa, Smith now has 222 on the season and 980 for his career. That pushes him into sixth all-time and just 96 behind Bobby Hurley’s record of 1,076. Smith is well within reach of that record and would need to hit the following marks to get there:
9 games (minimum games left): 10.7
10 games (1 additional game in either BTT or NCAAT): 9.6
11 games (2 additional games in BTT or NCAAT): 8.7
13 games (4 additional games): 7.4
14 games (5 additional games-BTT Title & Sweet 16): 6.9
16 games (7 additional games-BTT Title & Final Four): 6
17 games (Max games-BTT Final & NCAAT Final): 5.6
250
Matt Painter has been considered one of the best coaches in the country for the better part of a decade. That’s reflected in his record as he is now just the fourth coach in B1G history to win 250 conference games. The only ones above him? Tom Izzo, Bob Knight , and Gene Keady. That’s a testament to his coaching as he also ranks fourth overall in total wins in conference history with 491 and has a .692 win percentage. Safe to say that if CMP wants to stay as long as Izzo has at MSU, he could end up being the leagues winningest coach.
8
With the victory, Purdue now holds 8 quad-1 victories. That is tied for the third most quad-1 victories nationally, trailing only Duke (11) and Michigan (10). Purdue will have five more quad-1 opportunities in their final seven regular season games with both the Indiana and Wisconsin home games likely to be quad-1 games as well. Needless to say, Purdue has a chance to play themselves into a B1G Championship and a 1 seed in the NCAA Tourney if they win out.
7:43
During their four game winning streak (at Maryland, Oregon, at Nebraska, at Iowa), Purdue has tailed for a total of just 7:43 of game time. Purdue has done a better job with their composure during this four game streak, something that was seemingly lacking during their struggles in January.
14
Entering the Iowa game, Gicarri Harris had only scored in double figures four times this season. He had been averaging just 4.9 points per game and seemed to just be struggling in his sophomore season. Not so much the case against Iowa as Harris scored a career high 14 on 3-6 from behind the arc and had an absolute poster dunk in transition. What’s been notable is that Harris has played exponentially better when Purdue has been on the road.
In home games, Harris is just 5/31 from behind the arc for a putrid 16% but on the road Harris is whole other kind of shooter. On the road, Harris has shot 18/37 behind the arc for a team best 48.6% on shooters who play regular minutes. Harris’ father may have been known as the Big Dog but Gicarri might have his own version of the nickname: the Road Dog (credit to Nick Yeoman on that one).
261
I think everyone knows Fletcher Loyer was going through some things in the month of January with his jumper. Things looked good but the shots just didn’t seem capable of falling, for whatever reason. The senior guard shot just 9/33 for 27.4% behind the arc in the seven games prior to their current four game winning streak. Since that streak started against Maryland, Loyer is shooting 16/36 (44.4%) from behind the arc and averaging 19.25 points.
Loyer now has 261 career made three pointers and that places him just twenty made threes behind program leader Carsen Edwards’ 281. At his current pace of hitting an average of 2.6 per game, Loyer likely will break that record in the B1G Tourney.
12-0
When TKR plays well and is composed, it seems like Purdue is at their best. The senior guard isn’t scoring the way he did last season but his rebounding has been at an elite level most of the season. That’s been evident in the last four games as he has tallied an average of 12.25 but against Iowa he just seemed to be more like his typical self that Purdue fans saw over the previous three seasons.
TKR went for 12 points and 12 rebounds and just one turnover and just didn’t seem to get too high or too low. That fits his personality more than the boisterous player we saw during earlier stretches in the season. That double-double against Iowa is his twelfth and Purdue is 12-0 in his career when he achieves that.
20
Purdue continues to share the basketball at an elite level on the offensive end. With another 20 assist team performance, Purdue now averages 19.84 per game That per game average is an important one as Purdue is 14-0 when they hit 20 team assists but is 7-4 when they are below that mark.
3
Welcome back Mr. Jacobsen! The freshman has struggled as of late but the freshman big man did a much better job just keeping his feet planted and using all 7’4 of his height to alter shots inside. DJ blocked 3 shots and generally altered shots inside against the Hawkeyes as the home team struggled to score inside. At one point in the first half, Iowa missed seven straight layup attempts and went just 7/16 for the game.
Jacobsen has had a bit of an up and down freshman season at times but the talent and ability is always evident. He is averaging 7.2 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks while 67% from the floor. One key for Jacobsen moving forward is just being aggressive when the ball is in his hands and going straight to the hoop instead of putting the ball on the floor.
1
Likely the biggest reason Purdue won so convincingly on the road against Iowa was that they simply didn’t let Stirtz get going while also not allowing another player to support him. In the first game, it was Kael Combs going for a season high 16 when he averages just 6 for the season that allowed that game to be closer than what it really should have been. Purdue just seemed to be more connected on defense and seemingly more detail oriented in how they executed their scouting report.
Stirtz had 19 but needed 12 shots to get there and wasn’t particularly in rhythm as he also had four personal fouls. He was the 1 Iowa Hawkeye in double figures.