Purdue Will Destroy Buckeyes In Sunday Game

Purdue vs. Ohio State, 1:00 ET

It is hard to believe there are still teams left to play each other on Sunday after how many games took place yesterday for college hoops, but here we are! Today, we get a fraction of the games that took place yesterday, but there are still some good ones. And, of course, there are still opportunities for us to make some scratch on these games. I went just 1-1 yesterday, so nothing great, but we can try to take back that small loss with a victory in the game between two Big 10 schools. For this one, let's put a play on the game between Purdue and Ohio State. 

Purdue has been one of the best teams in the country the entire season. Say what you will about the future of their superstar, Zach Edey, he may or may not be an impactful pro, but right now, this team is good, and they continue to dominate teams. That doesn't mean they will win the National Championship. They could be bounced early, or they could run the table, that's part of the excitement and drama of college hoops. The two losses that Purdue has had this season came against Big 10 teams. The first one was against Northwestern, a road game where they dropped the game in overtime by four points. The second game was against Nebraska in Nebraska. That one they dropped the game by 16 points, and Edey only had 15 points and seven rebounds. I've looked at this game over and over again and can't really identify what went wrong for the Boilermakers in comparison to their opponent. You can point to Purdue's defense as the issue - they allowed Nebraska to shoot 51% from the floor and 61% from deep. While those numbers are alarming, Nebraska hit only one more three than Purdue. The way Purdue operates, typically, is to dump the ball into Edey and let him work. If he gets stuck or doubled, he is supposed to find the open man and dish it off. I don't expect Ohio State to shoot at the same rate as Nebraska, and I'm not sure the Buckeyes can stop Edey or even slow him down. 

Ohio State started the season with some success and looked like they might be a fairly competent team, going 12-2 to begin the season. They were able to take down Alabama, a ranked team at the time, and even went 2-1 in the conference games at that point. Then all hell broke loose and they have gone 2-9 since that point. Their only wins have been against Penn State and Maryland. The win against Maryland was against a quality team, but it took them two overtimes to do it. A lot of teams tend to struggle on the road and play better at home. While Ohio State has been better at home, they still are losing a lot of games. Looking at their home games against ranked opponents, they have lost both games by double-digits. Those games were against Wisconsin and Illinois, both of them are not as good as Purdue, but both very talented squads. Ohio State has three solid players, but the issue is that is essentially all that the Buckeyes actually have. Ohio State doesn't shoot very well from deep so they need to focus on the midrange, which is one of the more inefficient shots in the game. They won't be able to just drive and score because they will have to deal with Edey. 

Purdue will crush Ohio State in this game. Right now they are 8.5 point favorites over the Buckeyes and I don't have much of a reason to believe that they can't cover the number. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it is never easy to back a road favorite in college, but sometimes the teams are just drastically different. In this case, Purdue is just that much better than Ohio State. If they were able to beat Wisconsin by six points the other day on the road, I think they can handle the 8.5 over Ohio State. 

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