All of Gene Keady’s best Purdue teams are defined by obvious characteristics.
They play hard and they play together. They harass on defense and they are patient on offense. They are far greater than any of their parts, and rarelyare hugely dependent on any one individual.
When Glenn Robinson was a Boilermaker, he was an obvious exception to that last rule, and now–just as obviously–it is clear this year’s Boilermakers feature a performer similarly important to their fortunes.
He is not as flamboyant as Robinson and he does not score as prolifically as Robinson. He is unlikely to end the season on any All-American list and he is surely not going to succeed Robinson as the top choice in the NBA draft. Still Purdue cannot do without 6-foot-8-inch senior forward Brian Cardinal.
That was evident last Saturday in the first game it played since he broke his left thumb in their Dec. 11 victory over Coppin State. Against Ball State at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis the Boilers frittered away a nine-point lead and lost by 20.
“We missed Brian a lot,” Purdue senior guard Jaraan Cornell said after that defeat. “We missed his enthusiasm and all the intangibles.”
Senior forward Rodney Smith added: “Mainly we just missed his leadership.”
When Cardinal went down, the Boilermakers figured to be without that leadership at least until they visit UCLA on Dec. 30. But a day after Purdue’s stunning loss to Ball State, he practiced with a protective shield on his thumb and is expected to play Wednesday when Purdue plays host to Central Michigan.
“I want to play him. I’m planning on it,” Keady said. “Naturally when you have the heart of your club out, you have a problem. We have to get him back, and he will be back.”
Money woes: Ohio State’s Value City Arena is a new-and-sparkling playpen without any obvious warts. Kansas’s Allen Fieldhouse is a legendary relic replete with nicks and inconveniences.
At Value City there are 52 hospitality suites and 4,562 seats set aside as personal seat licenses. At Allen there are bleacher seats. And those aren’t the only differences noted by the Buckeyes after they visited Allen and then returned home to play Eastern Kentucky.
At Allen a deafening sea of noise surrounded them. At home they were surrounded by the sounds of silence.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” guard Scoonie Penn said of this difference. “Our fans got loud a couple times when we went on a little run. But (hellip) at times it seemed dead.”
“It is different. It is totally different,” center Ken Johnson added. “Students [at Ohio State] are on the 400 level, which I just think is bad. They shouldn’t have the students at the very top. You go to schools like Michigan, Michigan State and Kansas, students are right there. They’re pumped up and ready.
“We have a lot of friends here and they’re up in the nosebleed seats. They’re screaming stuff like, `Go, Scoonie’ or `Go, Kenny’ or something, and we can’t even see them.”
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Time to get real: Point to a spot on the floor and Penn State shoots poorly from it. All over the court? It’s 10th in the Big Ten at 41.3 percent. Beyond the three-point line? Another 10th-place standing at 30.8 percent. From the free-throw line? A rousing eighth at 66.4 percent.
Despite these woeful deficiencies, the Nittany Lions somehow own a 7-1 record. But Wednesday they must visit No. 17 Temple, and there they will surely find out just how legitimate that record is.
“It think it’s going to be pretty hard,” Penn State forward Jarrett Stephens said of this task. “I’ve seen Temple play on TV and they look really good. They have that [match-up] zone that’s tough. We need to make shots. If we do that, we’ll be fine.”
“I know they’re going to play hard,” coach Jerry Dunn said. “But do I know who’s going to step up and make shots consistently? Not really.”
By the numbers: Bob Knight and Indiana call up visions of tough defense. But the Hoosiers lead the Big Ten in scoring with an average of 79.6 points per game, and are eighth in scoring defense while surrendering an average of 65.4 ppg. (hellip) Wisconsin and Northwestern top the conference in scoring defense, surrendering, respectively, 53.2 and 56.7 ppg. But they are the lowest-scoring teams in the conference. With Wisconsin at 58.8 ppg and Northwestern at 54.3, they are the only two teams averaging less than 71 ppg.