This will be a short post, as I don't have time to do a full look at all the games I've missed. I'm just going to do a quickie on the women's tournament so far. A fuller look at Purdue's NCAA profile will be coming before Selection Sunday. Purdue picked up two very nice wins yesterday and today, defeating Michigan State 73-64 and B1G regular-season champion Penn State 68-66.

Waiting in the title game is Nebraska, who sent Sam Prahalis and Ohio State home earlier today (good riddance). If the past is any indicator, it should be a great game, given that the only time the teams met this year, the result was a triple-overtime epic that saw Nebraska escape Mackey with a 93-89 win. The game will be on ESPN2 at 4:00, so tune in while you get your hate on for IU.

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Hey all, how's it going? You might remember me. I used to cover Purdue women's basketball for Hammer & Rails before I was overcome with a bad case of engineering. Sigh....you do one electrical engineering assignment and you miss half a basketball season.

I'm too far behind to game wrap individual games at this point without doing a full Grantland and dropping a several-thousand-word post. Instead, I'm just going to touch on a few key areas and take a look at the future.

The Bare Bones

First, lets look at the basics: Purdue sits at 16-3, including a win over defending national champion Texas A&M. They are also 6-0 in the Big Ten, which is good for a one game lead on the field. They've bounced around the polls, which are kind of a joke in the women's game, and currently sit at lucky number 13 in one poll and 18 in the other. down the stretch, they're looking at an excellent shot at a Big Ten title and a top 4 seed in the tournament.

Take a jump with me and we'll take a look at the highs, lows, losses, and future for this team.

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Someone left this as a comment on my last article, but I thought I would bump it to the front page.

The Paint Crew line for the Eastern Michigan game Saturday will hold the spots of anyone who wants to go in and watch the #12 Purdue women play vs #2 Notre Dame. I'm not sure, but I believe tickets to the women's game will be required, but all Paint Crew members have already paid for women's season tickets by virtue of their VIP cards, so anyone interested only has to pick them up. If anyone from the Paint Crew can confirm this for me, that would be great.

The game will also be televised at noon on the Big Ten Network.

Lastly, I'm sure some of the Paint Crew, and probably the readership at large, will kind of look down their nose at the women's game. But it's free, it's 2 hours in line inside instead of the cold, and you might find you enjoy it even if you're skeptical.

....and of course, you also get another shot to hate Notre Dame.

We'd definitely love to have a big chunk of Paint Crew fans there. Mackey is already perhaps the toughest place to win in the conference (looking at you, band), and a few hundred of the loudest PC members would make it even better.

Oh, and did I mention you get to hate Notre Dame?

via cmsimg.jconline.com

Last week I profiled some of the women's basketball team, but unlike your normal (read: punctual) player profiles, mine are done after the season is already underway. Which of course begs the question, how is said season going? The short answer is, quite well. The girls handled a D-II ranked Ediboro 88-73 in the exhibition, then ran over IUPUI 75-45 in the opener. They squeezed by a better-than-you'd-think Bowling Green on the road (whew), then blew out Tennessee-Martin and Chicago State by scores of 65-39 and 76-49, respectively. Their next two games were played in Cancun, as the Boilers made the trip they were denied last year by Drey's illness. Facing Tulane, the ladies won comfortably against Tulane, 61-48, before getting into a knock-down, drag-out OT war with Kansas State that finished just 46-42.

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     First off, Happy Thanksgiving to all!  Purdue women's basketball is once again underway.  Supporters and pundits alike expect a solid season, as the team has currently climbed to #15 in the rankings.  For those of you who are new to the program, or if you just want a look at development since last year's preview, I'll be running down the guards on this year's roster.  A look at the forwards will be forthcoming soon.  Also, the girls have handled the patsies of the non-con well, and I'll take a brief look at that tomorrow.  Unfortunately, though, the biggest news so far this season is bad: star-crossed F/C Drey Mingo tore her ACL in an intersquad scrimmage three weeks ago.

     It's hard to overstate how big a blow that was to the team.  Drey is a star.  She was a near-automatic double-double last year when she was healthy, despite a life-threatening illness almost exactly a year ago.  She could shoot (50% from 3), she could rebound, and she could score with her back to the basket in the post.  She protected the rim and battled opposing centers to a standstill.  In short, Drey was going to take over for OSU's departed Jantelle Lavender as top center in the conference and as Big Ten Player of the Year.  All that vanished in a heartbeat during a meaningless scrimmage against Indiana State.  It was a deveastating loss for Purdue and for the conference as a whole.

     But you know what?  I don't care anymore.  We took a paragraph to grieve, now it's time to attack.  This is a damn good team even if they'd never heard the name Drey.  These players are their own team now, and Drey's ACL shouldn't even be mentioned for the rest of the season.  I say this not to belittle Drey, but to make the point that no one, not me, not Coach Versyp, and most of all not the players, can just stand around wishing she was there to save them.

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It appears ESPN's king of overpaid hacks has written another gem. This time Reilly's purporting to tell all of us just what we can wear and when to a football game.  Hey Rick, guess what pisses sports fans off faster than almost anything, and has the bonus effect of making you look like a total douchebag?  That's right, telling them what to do!

And by the way, way to man up and respond to the comments left on your article....oh wait!  You're one of ESPN's protected golden boys!  You don't have to deign to respond to the great unwashed masses.  At least I can tell Johnette Howard what I think of her trash pieces, but noooo, none of that for the great Rick Reilly!

/end rant

Unless you're been living under a rock for the last week, you know exactly what happened last Sunday.  Everything this school and this nation prides itself on was on display on the world's greatest stage.

If you ask me, the Women's World Cup is like the Bucket.  As two-time winners, it is the legitimate property of our team; it only visits other nations.  Let's get it back, ladies.

 

Purdue Women finish on a 4-2 run to earn a spot in The Big Dance

I'll run down the individual games a bit later, but first I want to step back and take a look at this season as a whole.

So, we earned a bid.  What's that mean?  Frankly, it means this is a truly extraordinary team. At the beginning of the year I predicted a decent NCAA seed and a top 5 finish in the Big Ten.  Then we lost our PG 4 minutes into the season to a torn ACL.  Drey nearly died of meningitis.  Ashley Wilson was academically ineligible for the heart of B10 play.  Even Brittany struggled all season with a nagging back injury.  By all rights, this team ought to have folded like a cheap tent weeks ago.  But they didn't.  They got a 9 seed and finished one game out of a 4-way tie for third in the B10.

There were times this season when I was critical of this team, perhaps too critical.  We were starting a freshman at point, ateammate, to say nothing of a friend, nearly died, we had no seniors....everything militated against a solid season like this.  The resiliency of this team is astounding.

I'll leave things there for now, because the season isn't over.  After the jump, I'll look at how we locked up our bid.

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Purdue is offering $2 admission to tomorrow's women's game against Ohio State for anyone with a ticket stub from the men's game.  The game is also Purdue's annual "Pink Zone" game to raise funds for cancer research.  Fundraisers will include a halftime ball toss, silent auctions of jerseys, shorts, and autographed balls, as well as a free throw pledge drive.  So, if you're in town for the men, stick around and catch a women's game, and maybe even help out a good cause.  Hope to see you all there!

It's been almost a month since we last checked in on the Lady Boilers, and that means it's time for a desk-clearer.  As of my last post, the Boilers had just pulled out a one-point win over Michigan to get their first Big Ten win, leaving them at 10-5 (1-2).  While that isn't bad, it's not great either, and the mix of wins and losses meant that we were in danger of missing the tournament.  Since that time, the team is on a 6-3 run to put them at 16-8.  They are also riding a 6-game home winning streak and in 5th in a tight Big Ten race.  More importantly, the latest Bracketology has us as a 9 seed, and rising.  So how did we get here?  One game at a time.

Win @ Indiana, 55-50

Player of the Game: Courtney Moses - 9 Pts, 5 Ast, 0 TO, 4 Reb, 4 Stl, 1 Blk(!)

The Boilers survived an off shooting night to win a tight one in Bloomington and defend the Barn Burner Trophy.  Tight defense and good free throw shooting (21-22) were the keys to this one.  Moses did a little bit of everything in this one, but most important was the clean sheet in turnovers.  Dee Dee Williams also had an excellent game, holding IU's leading scorer Jori Davis (25 ppg) to just 4 points while she was guarding her. Davis finished with 12 points on 4-16 shooting.  7 Boilersfinished with 4+ rebounds, led by Alex Guyton with 6.

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Any sports fan knows the cliche.  Coaches talk until they're blue in the face about "doing the little things."  When you win a close one, it's cause you did them right.  When you don't, you didn't.  Listening to coaches, sometimes it seems like the little things are the only things.

And yet, they talk about them because, cliche or not, they matter.  They win you games.  Against Wisconsin, we failed in all respects to do those little things.  Brittany scored 26 points and we still lost because we didn't play hard.  Against Michgan, the opposite was true: we locked down in the second half, andwe ground them down on the boards.  It was enough to make up for an off shooting night, especially from Brittany.  These games were all about heart and desire, and we deserved both results.

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Purdue handles Auburn in Boilermaker Blockbuster, runs over Southern Illinois, then squeezes past Gardner-Webb on the road.

What with the recent flurry of games, I'm multi-task-posting again.  Anybody noticing a pattern here?  Anyway, the Boilers have righted the ship in style after a tough 3-game slide.  They are now effectively done with the non-con schedule, with only a home date with Western Illinois left before Big Ten play.  Also, Drey Mingo is back, although not up to full speed, and Ashley Wilson is back into the rotation.  We're getting healthy and heading in the right direction.  I'll post a fuller reflection on the first 10 games in a few days, but all things considered, we're in a pretty good place right now.

Purdue 76, Auburn 56

This is a solid win over a power conference team, albeit a 4-6 one.  The Tigers have some good size up front, someting we've not seen a lot of so far.  We still outrebounded them 42-33, which is very good to see.  It means we can still rebound against teams that we can't simply out-athlete.  We also took care of the ball decently well, and our offense looked much smoother than it has, especially in the losing streak.  Alex Guyton had a very good game, scoring 14 and pulling down 9 rebounds to go with a pair of blocks and 4 steals.  Courtney Moses was sharp as well, with 12 points and 4 assists.  And last but not least, Drey Mingo returned.  She got a nice hand from the crowd, and was able to contribute 2 points and a board.  She is nowhere near full strength, but to be back at all less than 3 weeks after a life-threatening case of meningitis is incredible.

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Purdue falls to Texas A&M 55-100, then takes it out on Murray State

I'm not even going to do a write-up on the A&M game, it was so awful.  We got blown out, we shot simply awful, Brittany got ejected, and worst of all were the 26 turnovers. Writing a piece on this game simply makes it harder to forget, and that is what we need to do with this game.  There isn't much to learn here (don't turn it over and hit shots is not much of an insight).  Even Courtney scoring 26 is not a highlight, when you consider her 7 TOs and the fact that no one else got above 6.  The team clearly was not ready for this type of road trip, and I blame the loss of the Cancun trip.  Instead of getting two easy games under our belt away from Mackey, we faced #17 and #7 in our first two away games.  In short, this game never happened.  Let's move on.

Purdue 71, Murray State 25

Yes, you read that right.  We held the Racers to 25 points in 40 minutes.  Realistically, though, it wasn't all us.  We played excellent defense all night, forcing 28 TOs(18 steals), but even with a hand in their face, you expect the other team to do better than 12 percent shooting.  I have never seen a team that cold from the field.  Regardless, we played a good game and bounced back well from the A&M game.  Ordinarily, I would criticize a lopsided margin like that, but in the shot clock era it is hard not to score 50-60, so we weren't running it up.  They were just unspeakably cold.

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It's been almost a month since my last post, and what a busy month it was for the women's team.  It was busy for me too, for that matter.  I mean there was this parade thing in New York, and some football game that may or may not have occurred, not to mention the usual engineering/free time mutually-exclusive thing.  So long story short, I've been snowed in and it's time for a catch-up post.

First, the good: at last posting, the Boilers were preparing to face DePaul for the preseason WNIT title.  They handled that game exceptionally well, winning 67-58 to take the championship.  The game was more or less a microcosm of the season: Brittany got hers, Courtney was solid at the point, and Drey went off in the second half to seal the deal.  Drey Mingo was selected to the All-Tournament Team, and Brittany Rayburn was named MVP of the tournament.  So far, that was the high point of the season, and then things started going all to hell.

Scheduled to get some experience away from home without facing anybody especially brutal (and get a free trip to Cancun), the team instead found itself watching one of their own fight a potentially life-threatening case of meningitis.  Before I analyze any further, I'm going to wish Drey Mingo a speedy recovery, and thank God that things did not turn out worse.  At one point she was only given a 50-50 chance at survival, much less a full recovery.  Every once in a while we need to remember that athletes are human beings too, and Drey's illness should be viewed in that light rather than as nameless, faceless subtraction of talent.  She was released from the hospital a week ago today after a five-day stay and she is expected to recover fully.

That said, the season is not over, and the team is facing a major challenge.  How they respond to it will define the season.

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In my last post I promised a closer look at how we need to deal with KK's injury.  I couldn't make the South Dakota State game, so I'm going to cut down on the analysis of that game and look more at the season going forward.  Here's the Cliff Notes version:

Box Score

Player of the Game

Brittany Rayburn - 19 Pts, 6 Reb, 2 Ast, 7-9 FG

Came out hot to build the lead, then kept working to build it.

Game Balls

Drey Mingo- 17 Pts, 3 Ast, 2 Reb, 7-9 FG

Continued the trend of second half closer, scoring most of her points in the second half.

Antionette Howard- 15 Pts, 6 Reb, 4 Ast, 2 Stl

Another excellent game off the bench for Antionette.

Team Defense- 20 pts in each half, 34% opp FG

This win means that we will face DePaul for the preseason NIT title on Sunday in Mackey.  Tip-off is two o'clock.  I expect to see all of you there.  All of you.  I will hunt you down.  TMill knows where you live. (awkward pause) More on that later...  This will be the first real test for this team (DePaul is just outside both polls), and how they handle it will tell us a lot about how this season will go.

And now for the title of the article...KK going down is a huge loss.  Anytime you lose a starter, it's tough to get back to that high level, especially when that starter is playing as well as KK was.  But it can be done, and it must be done.  So how will we do it?

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I've had a lot on my plate the last week or so, so I decided to double up this game wrap rather than try to squeeze in a short one.  Also, I was unable to make it to the Toledo game due to an exam, so my analysis of that game will be more box-score-based than usual.

That said, let's get to it.  The girls had two nice wins over Austin Peay and Toledo, putting them in the semis of the preseason NIT, and suffered one huge loss in KK Houser.  You guessed it, KK tore her ACL 4 minutes into the Austin Peay game.  The loss is absolutely a huge one, but at the same time it is not a death blow.  Sound familiar?  Anyway, more on that later.  For now, let's talk about the good from the weekend.

Player of the Game, Austin Peay

Courtney Moses - 20 Pts, 5 Ast, 7-11 FG, 4-5 3Pt

This one is a no-brainer.  Your starting point guard going down and a freshman backup coming in is supposed to be a disaster, but Friday night was the complete opposite.  I mentioned last week that Courtney has a pretty shot, and boy did she prove me right.  Unafraid to shoot and with a quick release, she could be the answer to Jodi Howell's departure.  On top of that, she dished out 5 assists and ran the break with aplomb.  Add that to her superb defense and you have the makings of an excellent point guard.  With KK out, Courtney may be the key to the season.  Games like Friday's make me unafraid to put that load on her, regardless of experience.

Player of the Game, Toledo

Drey Mingo - 21 Pts, 9 Reb, 4 Ast, 4 Blk, 7-8 FT, 0 TO

This game can only be described as monstrous.  Pretty much everything you can do to help your team win, she did.  The stat line pretty much speaks for itself.  I mean, 4 assists from a F/C?  That's Robbie-esque, and 4 blocks would make JJ proud.  Amazing.  On a larger scale, this team is pretty far under the radar (11 seed, 'Last Four In'  in the first bracketology), largely because people don't realize how good Courtney and especially Drey can be.

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Purdue defeats UIndy 99-43

The Boilers rolled in their second exhibition game.  This will be a brief post, partly cause I have homework up to my eyes, and partly cause all I have to say is glorified "good job."  Box score is here.

Player of the Game: KK Houser - 21 Pts, 7-13 FG, 6-7 FT, 5 Ast, 3 Stl

KK played a good game today, keeping everyone involved and getting to the basket well.  She didn't dominate, but no one really did, as this was a team win.  Anytime that is true, the point guard deserves a fair amount of credit.  She also continued her solid free-throw shooting.

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Last week, we took a look at the guards for your 2010 team.  This week, we'll look at the frontcourt, and I'll have the advantage of having an exhibition game to give me a chance to see some of the new faces.  As a whole, this group is largely interchangeable parts, to one degree or another, and I don't mean that in a bad way.  All but Ashley Wilson are between 6-2 and 6-4, and roughly the same size. Expect to see heavy rotation at all spots with most of these players.

#24, Drey Mingo, 6-2 RS Junior F

2008 Stats: 3.7 PPG, 2.1 RPG, 12 Min

2010 Projection: Starting PF/C

Our second transfer to become eligible this year, Drey comes to us via Maryland.  We all saw what she did against Parkside, and I think everyone was impressed.  An All-American coming out of high school, she struggled to find playing time at UM, and no one really knows why.  Their loss is our gain, though. A long, athletic forward with some nice post moves, she also showcased a solid midrange game Monday night. 8-for-12 shooting with a 3 is efficient by any standards, and she also added 7 boards.  She should be a key contributor in the frontcourt this year.  If she can average 12 and 7 a game, we should be in excellent shape.

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