Purdue Basketball: Keys to beating Virginia in the Elite Eight

2. Purdue has to get other contributors

There’s no doubt that Carsen Edwards is one of the best guards in the country. It’s also no secret that the backcourt of Edwards and Ryan Cline is playing its best basketball of the season during the most important time. Edwards dropped 40 last week and Cline made seven triples the other night. But these two guys combine for over 17 three-point attempts per game. You would need to take just about every three-point shooter for Virginia to get to that number.

I’ve seen those two play too much hero ball though and blow games for Purdue. It obviously happened at the beginning of the season which is why they started 9-6. The Boilermakers found their groove, learned how to play as a team and went on a major winning streak which propelled them to an eventual three seed. Purdue only lost three games after the eight-game winning streak.

The two guards continued to play hero ball from time-to-time though. That can’t happen Saturday night against Virginia. The Cavaliers will put them away before the second half and there’s no next game after this loss. The Boilermakers are playing extremely well right now after being a one-and-done in the Big Ten Tournament. But there’s always a possibility they start showing signs of what happened during their final three losses in Big Ten play.

The opening round game against Old Dominion was the only one of the three where no one other than Edwards scored more than 15 points. There’s not much you can expect from anyone else when a player scores almost half of the team’s total by himself. That’s what Edwards did against Villanova. But Matt Haarms still contributed 18 points on 66 percent shooting with nine boards.

Ryan Cline showed some senior leadership in the sweet 16 when he threw in a ton of three-pointers. Edwards still managed to outscore him by two, but that is something Purdue needed bad. Haarms scored 11 on over 60 percent shooting again while athletic sophomore guard Nojel Eastern shot over 60 percent himself for 11 points. Aaron Wheeler came off the bench and dropped two three-pointers himself.

Everyone knows that Virginia is going to get everyone involved. Believe it or not, Kyle Guy has made over 100 three-pointers this season. But Ty Jerome is an underrated points guard and De’Andre Hunter will be a first round draft pick someday. Purdue has to make sure they get a third guy ready to go for some scoring because it’s going to be hard to get consecutive buckets on Virginia.