For Purdue basketball, its NCAA Tournament Redemption Tour continues Sunday afternoon in Indianapolis against 8th seed Utah State.
The 20th ranked Aggies (28-6) knocked off 9th seed TCU, 88-72, in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. It marked the first NCAA Tournament win for Utah State since 2001. Utah State was led by senior guard Ian Martinez and his 21 points. Freshman center Isaac Johnson, who scored a career high 19 points to go along with a career high four blocks.
Utah State shot 55 percent in the game, including 42.1 percent from behind the arc, and the Aggies have the complete attention of Purdue basketball.
Purdue basketball is not taking Utah State lightly
While Purdue is the favorite heading into Sunday’s meeting, do not expect the Boilermakers to take the Aggies lightly.
“They’re just a really good team. The big guy that they have, he’s a really good player… It’s going to be a tough matchup,” Trey Kaufman-Renn said.
Purdue basketball big man Zach Edey echoed those sentiments.
“They’re a good team, obviously. They kind of play that five out style. They try to spread you with their five man that can shoot and also put the ball on the floor and make some plays like that. Obviously, we have some things in place to try to prevent the way they want to play,” Edey said.
Purdue basketball coach Matt Painter has a stern message for fans and anyone who may expect the Boilermakers to overlook the Aggies.
“Everybody in the NCAA tournament is really good. Now when you go to that 32, everybody is that much better. They’re a really, really good basketball team. They are well coached. This is going to be a dog fight. We’ve had a lot of experience here, and we’ve had some disappointing days. There’s no way we are looking past these guys. These guys are real. If you watched that game from TCU, TCU is tough, they’re hard nosed, they’re well coached and they got some big time players. They handled them. So we know this is going to be really difficult,” Painter said.
Aggies are an “outlier,” according to Purdue basketball coach
While many teams year after year bring back a player or several from the previous season, such is not the case for Utah State under coach Danny Sprinkle.
“They’re an outlier. For a team not to have any individual on their team from the previous year. I think the caveat for that is Danny does have two of his players from his previous school that’s played for him, and they happen to be two of his better players and the positions are really hard to get. A quality point guard, the guy that can run your team and make a play, and then a great big that can pass the basketball,” Painter said.
Could Purdue basketball follow that trend at some point?
Probably not.
“We’ve taken two guys now, if you count the following year, in four years. So we’ve had the fewest amount of guys of any high major school in the country in the last four years,” Painter said.
He added he doesn’t think starting over year after year is sustainable.
“I don’t think you can keep doing that every single year. There has to be some growth from year to year. You just want that as a coach, right? You want experience, but you also want experience of being successful together,” Painter said.
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