NCAA Basketball: Ranking the 8 teams for 40th Maui Invitational Tournament
1. Purdue Boilermakers
Just like Marquette, Purdue also is a 29-win team that returns just about its entire roster after a quality past year that includes a conference player of the year star. The difference though is that the Boilermakers had the best individual in all of NCAA Basketball this past season in Zach Edey.
The 7’4 National Player of the Year is back after a dominant campaign where he produced 22.3 and 12.9 rpg. Also back is essentially the entire frontcourt, including Caleb Furst Mason Gillis, and Trey Kaufmann-Renn. Ethan Morton is back on the wings and replacing Brandon Newman is Lance Jones, who averaged 13.8 ppg at Southern Illinois last season.
The key to how good Purdue will be next season is the respective developments of guards Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer. Both were great as freshmen contributors overall but they clearly hit a wall towards the end of last season, which played a part in the stunning upset defeat to Fairleigh Dickinson as a 1 seed.
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Assuming that second-year leap occurs, it’s hard to see many teams beating Purdue either in the non-conference or Big Dance next season. But they’re set to have three quality tests in the Maui Invitational a few months now, starting with the Gonzaga Bulldogs. The Boilermakers dominated the WCC foes last year in the PK85 Tournament, can they pull off a repeat performance in the first round here?