Purdue, Illini each dealing with issues

Posted In: Herald & Review Mark Tupper Illini
Date: Monday, January 18, 2010

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems the Illinois-Purdue game Tuesday night arrives with double importance.
If Illinois wins, things will seem relatively bright.
If Illinois loses, things will seem urgently grim.
If Illinois wins, I could see a split of the two upcoming road games against Northwestern and Penn State and a 6-2 Big Ten record at that stage. The way other teams are losing, 6-2 will seem pretty good.
If Illinois loses, I will expect a four-game winning streak that Illinois enjoyed to begin league play to be followed by a four-game losing streak. And 4-4 will seem shaky, especially with the very difficult second-half schedule looming.
On Monday, Purdue coach Matt Painter ripped into his own team pretty hard on the weekly Big Ten teleconference, saying they have lost three in a row because they don’t work hard enough, don’t rebound the ball and don’t play tough enough. Coming from Painter, those are harsh criticisms of his own team.
“I could care less what the mood of our team is,” he barked. “You start five guys and we only have a couple playing hard (Robbie Hummel and E’Twaun Moore). That’s what we’ll be searching for in the next couple days.”
Painter pointed out that Purdue has been outrebounded in five straight games and they were whipped on the glass by 19 rebounds in Saturday’s loss at Northwestern. When’s the last time the Wildcats outrebounded Purdue by 19? Ever?
“We have too many guys who watch,” he said. “You work on it and talk about it until you’re blue in the face but they have got to go do it. If Robbie Hummel doesn’t do it, it doesn’t happen. He gives the best effort and we don’t get that from anyone else right now. We have guys coming off the bench who flat-out don’t get rebounds. They play 10 minutes and don’t get a rebound and they are not a whole lot different from the guys who start.”
Ouch.
That’s all fine and well, but Illinois has major issues of its own to solve. Mike Davis is in the middle of a full-blown, hard-to-understand slump. And Mike Tisdale has been in and out of foul trouble, which limits his time on the floor.
It’s not as simple as saying that Davis can’t perform against the more physical teams like Michigan State and Purdue. He can and he has in the past. When Illinois beat Purdue at the Assembly Hall last season, Davis had 14 points and 16 rebounds. It happened against the same players he’ll be going against Tuesday night.
Tisdale has been a little more predictable in that regard, but when Illinois beat Purdue in overtime in West Lafayette, Ind., last season, Tisdale had 18 points and six rebounds.
It can happen. But will it?
And therein lies the problem. It seems difficult – no, it seems impossible – to project long-range success for this team when you can’t currently project a reliable contribution from either Mike Davis or Mike Tisdale.
Players are going to have games that don’t measure up to their season averages. And every player can go through a shooting slump. But for Davis, rebounding should be somewhat reliable and hasn’t been. And Tisdale has to somehow learn to avoid touch fouls and retaliation fouls in order to remain on the court. Any team that is paying attention would be silly not to attack him and try to draw contact. Michigan State definitely did that Saturday and I’d be surprised if Purdue doesn’t do the same tonight. It’s a sensible strategy.
It will be good to have the students back after semester break. This is a game where they could be a factor, but Illinois is going to need to give them something positive to get excited about.
Big game, any way you look at it.

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