Big Ten Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2023-24 season

1. Purdue Boilermakers

Get the jokes out of the way, Matt Painter and the number one overall seed Boilermakers deserve to be pilloried for their embarrassment in the first round of the tournament. And it’s hard to question people’s doubts in a team that continues to slip-up when it matters most. But the Boilermakers have been simply dominant during big man and National Player of the Year Zach Edey’s college career and made the tournament 14 of his 18 years at Purdue.

And again, they’ve been dominant thanks to the elite abilities of Edey and his size. The 7-4 giant simply changes the composition of play when he’s on the floor. Questions about his endurance and volume were resoundingly answered during his junior campaign, where he averaged 22.3 points and 12.9 rebounds on 31.7 minutes per game.

You can question Painter and his scheming of the tournament, where they’ve been unable to answer opponents’ counters. In the regular season, Purdue has largely been as solid as they come. They were spotless in the nonconference, taking down Marquette, West Virginia, Gonzaga and Duke.

There is hope that a year of experience for Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer will help them rise to the occasion this go around and that the offense will be less dependent on Edey solving the team’s problems. Painter added Southern Illinois transfer Lance Jones, an athletic guard who might be able to help when opponent defenses pressure the Boilermaker guards trying to initiate the post offense.

What makes a conservative offseason more than fine is the potential of Edey after another summer of training with the Canadian National Team. Edey showed a more complete game throughout last campaign and it’s hard to argue that we shouldn’t expect more development with another year of training.

If Purdue can let Edey cook, Painter just might finally break through and reach the Final Four we’ve all been waiting for.