Big Ten Basketball: 10 key questions for the league entering 2021-22 season
Will Purdue’s returning starting line-up be enough?
On the other spectrum of the concerns that the Maize Rage may be having about their No.1 ranked freshman class arriving in Ann Arbor, is the question that the Boilermakers’ faithful have about having the same starting five as last year.
Purdue finished 13-6 in the Big Ten which landed them in fourth place. Ultimately, the fourth-place seed was converted into a quarter-final loss to Ohio State in the Big Ten Tournament. The NCAA tournament provided disappointment more than success as the Boilermakers lost to thirteen-seed North Texas. As expected, the fear around Lafayette is that there will be more of the same this season.
Unlike a high school team that achieves a certain degree of success with non-senior players, Purdue is not guaranteed this improvement. The expectation is that the teenager will improve over the summer, even if there is no actual skill development, when a fifteen-year-old turns sixteen, he is inherently stronger, faster, and taller. Such natural physical growth that makes basketball easier, is not guaranteed among nineteen and twenty-year-olds and these elite athletes must put in tremendous work.
The 2020-21 season saw the starting line-up of Eric Hunter Jr, Mason Gillis, Jaden Ivey, Sasha Stefanovic, and Trevian Williams finish eighth in the Big Ten in points per game. With the majority of the starting minutes being distributed among the same players, there should be no expectation that there will be a vast improvement simply to players being older.
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Having three seniors and two sophomores in your starting line-up is comforting, is it enough to defeat Illinois this season, or will the 12 points Ayo Dosunmu scored in the Fighting Illini’s eight-point victory be the deciding factor. Isaiah Livers dropped twenty-two in a Michigan victory, while it is a positive to have five returning starters, will it be enough?