Purdue Basketball: Breaking down Boilermakers 2019-20 rotation

By Toby Brown | Sep 14, 2019

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY - MARCH 28: Nojel Eastern #20 of the Purdue Boilermakers goes up for a dunk against the Tennessee Volunteers during the first half of the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament South Regional at the KFC YUM! Center on March 28, 2019 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /

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LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY – MARCH 30: Carsen Edwards #3 of the Purdue Boilermakers reacts after throwing a pass out of bounds in the closing seconds of overtime against the Virginia Cavaliers in the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament South Regional at KFC YUM! Center on March 30, 2019 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /

Purdue Basketball lost a ton of production from this past season. What will their new-look rotation look like for 2019-20?

As we start to look at the lineups for Matt Painter this year we have to look and see how many minutes this roster is missing from last year. Purdue Basketball lost two very big minutes players last year in Ryan Cline and of course Carsen Edwards. Both of them saw right around 35 minutes per game. Another big issue for Coach Painter will be the youth of the team. Even with another key graduate transfer in Jahaad Proctor the team only has four upperclassmen, only two of which have Big Ten basketball experience. The last issue that Matt Painter will have to figure out is how to rotate his guard-heavy roster. With eight guards on the roster, I am sure that Purdue will be playing a small lineup for most games.

With all of this being said, Coach Painter knows how to get the right guys in the game during certain situations. It will be very interesting to see how he deals with such a young and small team going into the season.

Let’s take a look at how I believe the rotation will be at the beginning of the year.

Point Guard

Minutes Breakdown: Nojel Eastern (30), Eric Hunter Jr (5), Isaiah Thompson (5)

The point guard position in West Lafayette is a very weird situation. Purdue has a very unorthodox point guard in Nojel Eastern. Eastern is easily the most experienced guard on the team as well as one of the best defensive players in the Big Ten as a whole. He will be very vital to the Boilermakers success throughout the tough Big Ten schedule. The issue at hand for the Boilermakers will be the depth they have at the guard position and who will come off the bench.

At the beginning of the season, I would look to see Eric Hunter Jr step into that role to an extent. He played an average of 12 minutes last year but I would not expect him to see the floor that much this year. Even though he was a proven scorer in high school, his production on the court last year was very minimal. He will have a battle for his job with incoming freshman Isaiah Thompson.

Isaiah Thompson is a guard out of Zionsville Indiana. He showed his scoring ability in high school by averaging 22 points per game as well as averaging three assists per game according to maxpreps.com. I expect Coach Painter to give the young guard a chance to prove himself in this upcoming season.

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