NCAA Basketball: 10 teams primed to lose early in 2023 NCAA Tournament
By Joey Loose
Purdue
Purdue has greatly exceeded expectations with their performance this season. The Boilermakers are undoubtedly the best team in the Big Ten this year after entering the season with far less expected from them. Matt Painter deserves awards for this team he’s put together, a team that got double-digit wins over Duke, Gonzaga, and West Virginia, and has also beaten Marquette and most of the Big Ten teams.
The big reason is the play of Zach Edey, who’s playing more like a national player of the year, averaging greater than a double-double and wreaking havoc on opposing defenses on a regular basis. Crucial to Purdue’s success this year has been the play of freshman guards Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith, who have both developed into great backcourt pieces and are certainly ahead of schedule. There are also some quality role players in the back half of this rotation, including forwards Caleb Furst and Mason Gillis.
The Boilermakers looked almost unbeatable until a few weeks ago, and they’ve now dropped three consecutive road games in a two-week span. What’s going for Purdue is the play of Edey, but it’s those guards that are cause for concern. A few of those losses came from cold nights from Loyer and/or Smith, and it’s hard to trust true freshman guards to helm a team that’s looking to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. If they earn a 1 seed, it’s not shocking to picture a loss if their second or third opponent can figure out how to defend the rest of this lineup.