NCAA Game Of The Week: Butler vs. Purdue For State Supremacy

In this week’s NCAA Game of the Week, two of the top teams in college basketball go head-to-head in Indianapolis as Butler and Purdue fight for state supremacy.

Indiana was once a state ruled by the Hoosiers. This season, the Hoosiers are still searching for answers.

On Saturday, four teams will due battle in Indianapolis in two separate games as part of the Crossroads Classic. One of those games has lost some luster but features two big name programs. The other is the NCAA Game of the Week.

The Hoosiers taking on Notre Dame is a nice way to kick off the action, but the real thrill will be when Butler and Purdue go head-to-head. Two teams with two different identities collide with the winner not only earning bragging rights, but a marquee win in a season where it’s incredibly hard to find one. Earning a victory here could do wonders to either team’s NCAA Tournament credentials.

Projected Starters:

Purdue – Isaac Haas, Caleb Swanigan, Vince Edwards, Raphael Davis, P.J. Thompson

Butler – Tyler Wideman, Andrew Chrabascz, Tyler Lewis, Roosevelt Jones, Kellen Dunham

Two completely different spectrums are involved with these lineups. Purdue’s key players are all big men 6-foot-9 or taller with Haas and Swanigan in the starting lineup and A.J. Hammons coming off the bench. Butler has just one player taller than 6-foot-8 on their roster, freshman Nate Fowler (6-foot-10) who has registered just 43 minutes of action so far this season.

Where Butler has the advantage, though, is in the backcourt. There were a lot of questions surrounding Purdue’s guards prior to the season, and while they’ve performed very well to this point, the Bulldogs have two All-Big East seniors in Dunham and Jones and a point guard in Lewis that’s added a new dimension to the Butler offense.

Numbers To Know:

Butler has long been known as a grind-it-out team, using key timing, great defense and just enough shooting to win games. This season, though, the Bulldogs have flipped the script on what’s made them so lethal this time around.

Almost a complete 180 in terms of team identity this year for Butler, a team that ranks second in the nation in points per game, averaging 91.7. Had you told me this would happen for Butler five years ago, you’d have been laughed out off of the Internet. Now, not so crazy because it’s happening.

According to Kenpom, Butler ranks fifth in adjusted offensive efficiency. However, Purdue is not that far behind them, sitting at 16th. Where the big difference between these two teams sits is with the defense.

Though Butler was the team known for its defense before this season, it’s been Purdue that’s made stopping opponents from scoring its calling card, ranking first in adjusted defensive efficiency nationally through its first 11 games of the season.

Now, Butler is the best offensive team that Purdue has seen this season as the Boilermakers’ best win is against a Florida team that ranks 111th in offensive efficiency. This presents new challenges for both teams.

Three players average double-digit scoring numbers for Purdue with Haas (13.5), Hammons (12.6) and Davis (11.6) leading the way. Swanigan is just behind them at 9.9 but leads the team in rebounding (9.1). Meanwhile, Butler has five players averaging double-digit scoring numbers with Jones, Dunham, Chrabascz, Wideman and Martin combining to average over 69 nice points as a unit.

Players To Watch: A.J. Hammons (Purdue) and Kelan Martin (Butler)

It’s not often that a team can have an all-conference first team performer come off their bench, but that’s exactly what Purdue has going for them in A.J. Hammons.

With Hammons being in his senior year and Haas and Swanagin being sophomores and freshman, respectively, Matt Painter has opted to give the younger guys the starting nods, allowing Hammons to be probably the best bench player in the country. That dynamic is hard to find and not often implemented among major conference teams. Purdue’s utilizing its depth now and building for the future at the same time.

Martin may be the best Bulldog on the floor most games. He certainly has been lately.

Over the last three games, Martin has scored 20-plus points in each, averaging 23 per contest in that span, and has grabbed 19 rebounds in the last two games combined. His presence off the bench gives Butler another option on the floor, something he wasn’t really able to provide last year as a freshman. Now he’s reliable, consistent and being utilized more as the season progresses.

Both of these players are incredibly valuable to their teams off the bench and whoever is able to take over when their team needs them the most may be the key to winning the game.

Critical Point For Purdue

Butler has their marquee non-conference win, having knocked off Cincinnati on the road a few weeks ago. Purdue is still looking for their big win before Big Ten play begins.

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Actually, this is a critical point of the season for the Boilermakers. Their bandwagon has grown over the last month or so, but this is the point of the season that it could reach overload.

Purdue’s next set of games: Butler (neutral), Vanderbilt (home), Wisconsin (road), Iowa (home) and Michigan (home). All of these games present different types of matchup problems for the Boilermakers at different positions. Though all are very winnable, if there’s a time Purdue starts to slip up a bit, it’ll be starting on Saturday.

Should the Boilermakers go 5-0 in this stretch and depending on how the rest of the top ranked teams play in that same stretch, we could be looking at Purdue as a team ranked in the top five in both major polls by Jan. 11.

Prediction:

This is Purdue’s first big challenge of the season. One of the questions going into this game is just how legitimate is this Butler offensive outpour and is it sustainable. It’s offense against defense, but one team plays both ends of the floor.

Purdue’s size alone is going to be a nightmare for Butler. Stopping two seven-footers when your best interior defender is 6-foot-8 is asking a lot and that’s where the Boilermakers focus their attention throughout the game.

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Though Butler isn’t going to just die, they can’t keep up with the size mismatch, resulting in double-digit win for the Boilermakers.

Regardless of the outcome, though, we should find out a lot about both teams and it should be an entertaining contest. Size is just hard to find in college basketball and Purdue has an overload of it.