#46 R.P.I. Purdue vs. #45 R.P.I. Virginia Tech: 

Virginia Tech men’s basketball returns to the court Sunday at half past 8 pm on ESPN2/ESPN3 for the championship game of the 2018 Charleston Classic— after not meeting anyone in St.Louie this early post-season time about.

The Hokies just smashed a likely C.a.a. eventual champion Northeastern by a whopping 88-60 routing of a final margin before lunch was served here in the People’s Republick of the 3o4. For our VicTory, we now draw 4 up and 0 down and for the whole shebang and no.22 nationally ranked Purdue. This is a pretty fair to middling early-season out-of-conference (OOC) contest for the surprisingly and pleasantly sprite Charleston Classic. As two nationally ranked teams have to be precisely what the Charleston matchmaking suits were after all along; so kudos to them and their prescient sense of bracketology. Nevertheless, you wanna know who will win the Charleston Classic championship? Read on, to find… out!

Purdue Head Coach: Matthew Curtis Painter: age=48, 322-154 overall,  289-149 at Purdue. Has a rep’ for: game-day coaching, in-state (Indiana rich) recruiting, international recruiting, and a hard-nosed style of play on G heavy looks.
$2,300,000.oo

The peep Matt Painter was born in Muncie, Indiana, where he attended Delta High School. He attended Purdue University as an undergraduate. He played four seasons as a Boilermakers Pt.Guard under head coach legendary Gene Keady and assistants Bruce Weber, and Steve Lavin. Matty helped lead the Boilermakers to three NCAA Tournaments and one N.I.T. appearance. He was teammates with Jimmy Oliver, Steve Scheffler and Glenn “big dog” Robinson. He started 50 of the 109 games in which he appeared and helped his team to a 75-45 overall record. In his senior season, he was selected as a team captain and was named an all-Big Ten Honorable Mention. Painter finished his career averaging 4.5 point-per-game and totaling 276 assists.

After graduation from Purdue in 1993, Painter moved on to coaching basketball. His first year as a coach was an assistant coach position at Washington & Jefferson College. With his help, the team finished the season with a 22–3 record and a quarterfinal appearance in the NCAA Division III tournament. During this time, he worked as a forklift operator to supplement his income. The next season, he became an assistant coach at Barton College. Painter then moved to Division-1 as an assistant coach at Eastern Illinois where he also received his master’s degree. After three years at Eastern Illinois, he moved to Southern Illinois in 1998 as an assistant to head coach Bruce Weber. Painter was previously acquainted with him while Weber was an assistant coach at Purdue during Painter’s playing days. Weber and Painter quickly turned a team that had a losing record the previous season into a successful team. Painter helped lead the Salukis to the NIT in 2000 and twice to the NCAA Tournament the following seasons while an assistant coach. In the 2001–02 season, they qualified for the NCAA Tournament and ended their season in the Sweet Sixteen with a loss to UConn. In 2003, Weber’s and Painter’s Salukis were featured on MTV’s special True Life: I Am a College Baller.

In 2004, Painter was recruited by Purdue as the replacement for retiring head coach Keady. He signed a six-year contract as the new Purdue Boilermakers men’s basketball coach. As part of a planned transition, Painter was named the associate head coach for the 2004–05 season. He joined former teammate Cuonzo Martin (now the head coach at University of Missouri) on the coaching staff. At the start of the 2005–06 season, Painter took over for Keady as the head coach at his old school and became the second former Purdue player to become the head coach since Ray Eddy (1950–1965).

Coach Matt has coached nine N.b.a. ballers at Purdue and already spawned four different big whistles per his coaching tree. At Purdue, he’s only been to the post-season 11 outta 13 times and he’s won at least one post-season game every post-season less two with four Sweet-16 appearances thus far. Coach Matt has taken four conference championship scalps and has won Big-10 Coach of the Year a downright impressive three times in the last 10 years. That plus his positive post-season mark really moves the big game needle here.

Thespian Painter had a brief role in the Nick Nolte film Blue Chips, playing for the fictitious “Coast” squad.

Daddy Painter has three children: Maggie, Brayden and Emma Painter.

Purdue at a glance:

• 24th most raw 3’s made in America so, far.
• 47th in rebounding margin (+10 rpg).
• 54th in FG percentage (50.4%).
• 60th in scoring O (88.7 ppg).
• 69th on the offensive glass (13.33 o-rpg).
• 84th in assists (16.7 apg).
• Everything else mean, median, mode or better.
• NO injuries reported. (THX @Coach God)!

Returning Starters=1

Purdue Strengths:

• One #3, Carsen Edwards, 6′1″, 201 lb. true-Jr. is the twist-top swaggy truth. Seriously, all of my preseason magazines have him tabbed as their alpha Big-’10’er for this campaign. Lindy’s has him listed as the sharpest shooter in the Big-10 to boot. I’d say that counts and I’d also count on his giving anyone a big ole fit if/when he gets it cranking, gets it going, or gets it rolling from outside. 27 ppg on average married to 2.8 apg, 3.3 rpg on 49% overall, 42% deep and a mere 100% from the charity stripe thus far all conspire to say so. As this Car.Ed’ is a pro’, and he’s prolly a 1st-round pro’ at that. Now mix in an absurd 24 individual awards already accrued and you start to see what I mean when I type that this kid can play that dang game. He was 2nd-team all-American last year and the Jerry West award winner as the best S/G in the country. That’s all. Carsen was per se only the no.46 recruit in the land outta high school where he routinely broke the 50 point scoring mark out in Texas. As this ex-footballer, just like winter-time… outright flurries on offense and lands scoring punches in bunches. Additionally -same as football- he has an Isotoner or Dan Marino quick-release and he can dribble-drive on top of all of that. Easily one of the best G’s we will see all season long, possibly the 1st-best G we will face all year.

  

• Ryan Cline’s 14.8 ppg and a team pacing 5.4 assists per game do not suck. And neither does Ry’s team-leading 1.4 spg and reasonable 34% range from downtown.  Cline is a 6′6″, 195 lb. final year shooting-G who is a lockeroom glue guy who does everything thing right and 35% from distance is actually a bit shallow for him. This guy is actually better than his early 2018 returns suggest and one of the rare guys you do have to coax to shoot… more.
• Evan Boudreaux, Nojel Eastern, and Grady Eifert are all tied for the team lead at 5.7 rpg apiece. 6′6″, 220 lb. -and same as Fletch- Eastern is basically 6′9″with the second year afro. And his game is heigthty enough when he gets it going. As he was the no.59 per 247Sports recruit in America as a big ole Pt.Guard two seasons ago with comparisons being made to Fab’-5’s Jalen Rose on the regular. Nojel and his nearly 7′ wingspan are a strange match-up at the One and if his 7.7 ppg only had some range on his J he’d prolly be at least an exported pro’. As this guy has stat-sheet-stuffer written all over him if/when on getting his range together.  They say his vision is so Chuck Yeager eagle-eyed 15-15 that he sees people before they are open, and sometimes turns them over (on unexpected/handcuffing passes) just the same.
• 6′6″, 220 lb. and Fred Sanford’s favorite Boilmaker -Grady Eifert- is a utility guy who does all the little things that any coach loves. 5.7 ppg and rpg alike with serviceable 33% range from deep and worker-bee, floor-burn, walk-on, Hawaiian shirt wearing wherever he goes feel good story. Every team needs a Grady Eifert on it.
• And oh yes… did I mention Purdue’s excitable and skyscraping 7′4″, 252 lb., r-Soph., true-C, Matthew Harrmas, yet? The real Amstel Lyte (Amsterdam native) and his 11.3 ppg, 2.3 bpg, 5.5 rpg and 62% shooting, all on a 30 point A.C.T. score in high school… well, jah; they do mean to do us, harm!

Purdue Weaknesses:

• Well, experience is not all that abundant here with 80% of the Boilermakers 2018 starters gonzo.
• Depth was said to be questionable for it as well.
• Whispers say this years team may have to outscore peeps more so than most defensively solid coach Painter teams have had to do in the past.
• Purdue was 2nd, that’s penultimate in 3-point shooting last year nationally and there is (virtually) only one way to go after that.

Boilermakers Bench: (depth=4)

6′8″, 220 lb. t-Jr., Evan Boudreaux looks like wvu’s head football coach (diane holgorsen) who looks like Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters who was looking for the… gatekeeper. That or maybe he looks like Woody Harrelson? Either way… he looks like he won’t be getting carded too much too soon. The 5.7 rpg don’t hurt, neither does the 9.9 ppg on 58% overall in relief. Neither did 17-n-change ppg and virtually 10 caroms (rpg) at Dartmouth last season. That’s pretty dang solid pine-squad work if you can get it too. And oh yes, he’s an Ivy League Man, with a Dartmouth degree in just 3-years! WoW! Big.Green.edu props insert (_____) here; check! Mummy holds a lotta Dartmouth she-hoops records and T&F records; whereas pops was only all-everything Lacross for the UGA-bulldogs. So the Olympic sporting family tree is branchy indeed.

Illation, conclusion(s) and OPT digits:

Number of Boilmakers who could start @Tech=1 for super sure, maybe 2.5 overal.

the takeaway:
The takeaway here is… in their last two years of hoops, Purdue has been to precisely two more Sweet-16’s than Virginia Tech has; ever.

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That and the little factoid that they have been unranked for precisely one
-that’s just (1)- week in the national A.P. men’s basketball poll in the last three years tells you just how close Purdue is to becoming a nationally elite hardwood program. (and here you thought the Boilmaker was only, a; drink!)

 ***

This team is good folks, this team will be very good if the Edwards’ surrounding talent does develop and if they do this team could very well be a Sweet-16 great; again.

the call…

Best as I can see post-Miami pasting over on the gridiron on Saturday night… Edwards is surely the hooping Alpha-male here. He’s a special scoring talent from range and on the drive. Something off a Ventnor Avenue man’s off-Guard Step’ Curry, who does not waste any time distributing or setting anyone else up at the One. And although that’s not Park Place type real estate, those ain’t baby shakes either.

Coach Painter can net his 300th win here if he leaves the Purdue faithfully buzzing come ~ 11 pm Sunday night.

And right now I have this a virtual even contest, and Vegas agrees with an opening line of Purdue-1 (Boilermakers favored by one point).

I was leaning V.Tech until I (re)studied the Purdue height, and advantages down in the paint.

That’s a lot for K.Blackshear to match-up with successfully while avoiding foul trouble for most of the night.

That being rightfully said, I’ma gonna pick the more experienced team to just nick the possibly more talented team; right at the buzzer— pardon the pun.

(50% confidence interval)
Virginia Tech=80, Purdue=79

“LETS GO!”

“Hokies!”

 bourbonstreet**