ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 2 7
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games this past season, the last one coming in the NCAA
Tournament.
Obviously, there's no guarantee of a similar result at
Purdue, but it was that success story Matt Painter had in
mind when arranging the training.
Purdue's coming off a colossally disappointing pair
of campaigns, its six-year run of NCAA Tournament ap-
pearances giving way to back-to-back losing seasons and
the bottoming-out of a last place finish in the Big Ten in
2014.
The narrative for the Boilermakers now has focused
on little things being the biggest piece of whatever big
things they aspire to make happen.
Granted, the post-mortem on failed seasons is very
rarely kind to those central figures who have moved on,
BY THE NUMBERS
14.9-10.9-4.3
A.J.
Ham-
mons'
averages (point-rebounds-blocks) in games last season in
which he played 30 minutes or more, two of them being
multi-overtime games.
9
The number of true freshmen who've started their first
college games at Purdue under Matt Painter prior to this
season, a number that'll inevitably grow in 2014 as it
welcomes the coach's largest Boilermaker freshman class, a
five-man group.
3
The number of teams in college basketball with two or
more 7-footers on their roster, with Purdue (Hammons,
Isaac Haas) joining Florida State (Kiel Turpin, Boris
Bojanovsky, Michael Ojo) and Oklahoma State (Anthony Allen
Jr., Marek Soucek).
67.1
Purdue's Big Ten-worst foul shooting per-
centage last season. However, it should be
noted that returnees this season shot just
under 73 percent while those who've departed only shot 60
percent last season.
168
Purdue's Big Ten-leading shot-blocking total
from last season, 96 of them recorded by
Hammons.
Tom Campbell
The charge for Kendall Stephens is to improve all facets of
his game, as Coach Matt Painter needs to be more than just
a long-range shooter.
Tom Campbell
Isaac Haas has not only provided the Boilermakers with great
size, but also a big body to compete with A.J. Hammons on a
daily basis in practice.
