Purdue Basketball: Review of 2020-21 depth chart and season outlook

Season Outlook for Purdue Basketball

The Big Ten is going to be really good again, but it won’t be anything like the gauntlet that it was in the COVID19 shortened season. Outside of what I feel are the top 3 teams in Iowa, Ohio State and Rutgers, there is not reason that a team like Purdue can’t emerge as the best of the next tier of the Big Ten.

Projected Starting 5:

PG- Eric Hunter Jr,

SG- Sasha Stefanovic

CG- Brandon Newman

F- Aaron Wheeler

PF- Trevion Williams

Contributors off the Bench:

Isaiah Thompson – Will see starter minutes off the bench coming off an impressive freshman campaign (5.6 Pts, 1.1 Reb, 0.7 Ast)

Jaden Ivey

Ethan Morton

Purdue will realistically only go 8-deep in 2020-21 and would really benefit from one more commit out of the transfer portal (the Boilers are in Indiana transfer Justin Smith’s final 7). That is ok because they bring back some of the best talent in the Big Ten, a conference that was leaps and bounds ahead of any other league in the country last year.

Matt Painter has proven himself as a coach who is able to reload year after year and can do it without one and done talent, so it makes Purdue a tough team to bet against. There is a lot left to learn, but the Big Ten should shake out something like this in 2020-21 with 10 teams capable of going to the NCAA Tournament (assumption is Garza comes back/ Dosunmu and Tillman go pro).

1.       Iowa

2.       Ohio St.

3.       Rutgers

4.       Michigan

5.       Michigan St.

6.       Purdue

7.       Wisconsin

8.       Indiana

9.       Minnesota

10.    Maryland

Despite two relatively high-profile transfers leaving the program, Purdue should be fine once the student-athletes are able to get back on campus. What Painter has built-in West Lafayette is impressive and outside of Tom Izzo there is no more credible coach in the Big Ten.

If Trevion Williams can become 17 ppg scorer and the Purdue guard rotation is as good as it looks on paper, this is a team that can be a force in the Big Ten and one that nobody is going to want play come March.