Purdue (3-0) vs. Austin Peay (2-2)
Mackey Arena, West Lafayette IN – 7pm
Purdue Plays: 1-0 (+3.64U)
Purdue is coming off another solid offensive performance against a decent mid-major Oakland squad on Sunday, winning 82-67. The 2-headed attack of JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore provided the main spark for the offense. Defensively was a bit of an issue though, allowing Oakland to shoot over 50% for a good majority of the game. Purdue still has some ball handling issues, as all three games so far have produced a ridiculously high amount of turnovers.
Austin Peay is another decent mid-major team, led by transfer PG Tyshwan Edmondson who is averaging over 17 ppg on 51% shooting. They are recently coming off a 7 point loss on the road to S. Illinois this past Sunday. They boast an impressive win @ St. Louis to open the season, a place that is very difficult to win at, followed up by a 3 point win @ Chattanooga. Their other game was a 3 point loss @ Lipscomb. The Governors have shown the ability in all four of their road games to be very competitive (15 points combined difference in all 4 games), and even though Purdue is a much better team than the 4 that Austin Peay has faced thus far, I expect them to at least contend in Mackey Arena.
Keys to the game for Purdue is to a) limit turnovers and b) rebounding. It seems to me that Lewis Jackson and Kelsey Barlow (the point guards for Purdue) tend to get in a frantic pace too often and that leads to bad possessions. A slow, methodical pace is what Purdue wants to do. Rebounding will also be key for Purdue. They have the height and depth advantage and must limit second chance opportunities for the Governors.
To me, this line has me scratching my head a bit. As the season goes along, any time Purdue is favored by 20 or more points has me thinking. They hardly ever blowout teams, and although they did that in their first two games I don’t see them having that type of success to blow open a 25+ point lead in the 2nd half against a better Austin Peay team. My play:
AUSTIN PEAY +20 (3U)
May also play the Governors for the 1H, but we shall see.
More plays to come later 
I write them in a word document then copy and paste here so idk what happened in between.
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