Posted:
#1
NCAA YTD: 106-95-9 (-13.17u)
Tuesday: 1-2 (+.73U)
Hit the 3U play Tuesday w/ OSU/Iowa over, but got robbed on ND with their poor effort from the FT line late, and Arkansas got waxed. Texas should be a nice play for Saturday vs. UCONN 
Purdue (13-1, 2-0 big ten, 3-0 road) travels to Penn St. (8-5, 1-1 big ten, 7-2 home) for a 6:30 early start. Pretty shocked when I saw the line open at -7 as I initially thought it would open around 10-12 points. This could be based off the last 2 trips to Happy Valley when Purdue won by 4 last year (not long after they lost Robbie Hummel) and lost by 3 2 years ago (no flow at all in that game and they were in the midst of a offensive slide then). Other than that, Purdue has dominated Penn St winning by DD easily over the last couple of years (won 13 of their last 16 games against them).
Purdue currently has the nations longest road win streak (did not know that before seeing that stat) and is 3-0 on the road this year. Purdue is hitting on all cylinders right now. There's not much I can talk about that I see as a major weakness in Purdue's game so far. Offensively they've been dominant, winning by DD in their last 7 and 12 of the 14 games they've played and rank 16th in assists per game. Defensively they've held 8 of their last 9 opponents to under 60 points.
Penn St revolves around their PG Talor Battle, as he goes so do the Nittany Lions. As long as Purdue contains him then they'll be fine, and I don;t see that being a problem. Barlow and Lew Jack will primarily be on him and are great defenders and matchup well with Battle. In 7 career games against Purdue, Battle has averaged only 11.7 ppg on 38% shooting. He is however coming off a 31 point performance in a losing effort at Michigan.
JaJuan and E'Twaun have not stepped off the gas pedal this year, continuing to do almost everything right (20.7, 19.9 ppg each). Still a bit concerned that they haven't had a consistent #3 scorer, but guys like Ryne Smith, DJ Byrd, and Lewis Jackson have all stepped up when they needed to in various games to pick up some slack.
I don't see this as a huge blowout win like they had against Michigan in their last road game, but it won't be less than a 7 point game here. Would play this up to 9, but just not as many units
PURDUE -7 (4U)
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