The Purdue Boilermakers will attempt to follow in the footsteps of the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Wisconsin Badgers as Big Ten representatives in the Sweet 16 of the 2011 NCAA Tournament. In order to do so, they'll have to knock out a team that is already playing their third game of the tournament in the Virginia Commonwealth Rams.
VCU had to play in one of the "First Four" games back on Wednesday night, as they toppled the USC Trojans in Dayton, Ohio by a score of 59 to 46, and took down the Georgetown Hoyas on Friday night, 74-56. Purdue reached the Round of 32 by defeating the St. Peter's Peacocks in the opening round, 65-43.
Over at SB Nation's Purdue blog, Hammer and Rails, they feel pretty confident about their chances of reaching the Sweet 16 of this year's tournament.
I think this is going to be a fun game to watch because we're going to get out in transition and really see what LewJack can do in terms of breaking down the press. It could be a big game for TJ too. Georgetown was incredibly undisciplined last night and struggled to 38% shooting. They also shot very poorly from three. This tells me we cannot settle for jumpers like we did against Iowa and Michigan State. We have to keep attacking the basket.
We should be fine as long as they don't keep hitting threes like they did last night. They are playing with a lot of confidence right now. That confidence will only grow if they get out in a lead and expand it as they did last night. They took apart a Georgetown team that was playing like a Final Four team for part of the season. They are more than capable of beating us, so we need to go back to playing our style of tenacious defense and smart, motion offense.
Tip-off for this one is set for 6:10 PM Central time, and you can catch the action on TBS, which is Channel 247 on your DirecTV box. Check your cable listings for channel in your area.