Brandon Newman and Mason Gillis Have One Message - Keep Going

It's the best performance not talked about.

Zach Edey deserves all the accolades for his performance this season, and in the Big Ten Tournament, but Purdue made a crucial change late in the regular season after losing 4 of 6 games that culminated in a regular season sweep from IU.

Matt Painter re-entered Mason Gillis to the starting lineup and made the call to put Brandon Newman in the starting lineup for the first time this season.

For Matt Painter, it was a pretty simple decision even if it's never easy to change a player's minutes. Brandon Newman provided a spark on the defensive end against IU and then did it again at Wisconsin. Purdue needed that.

Brandon Newman was put into the starting lineup against Illinois at home and he immediately responded with his best game of the season, and arguably, his most well-rounded game of his career.

For 34 minutes, Brandon Newman made Terrence Shannon's day a living hell. Shannon's efficiency numbers look good from a shooting stand point - 4 of 7 from the field - but the guard used to bullying other guards could never get away from Newman and get the quality or quantity of looks he's used to. Newman terrorized the senior guard in a way that only an 6'5" athletic and determined defender could.

Shannon had 6 turnovers that game, three of them directly going to Newman, and most of those happened near half court where Newman has created a habit of taking the ball from opposing guards and taking it for points at the other end.

But if Newman's performance against Shannon was a coming out party, his final defensive performance in the Big Ten Title Game was pure art, a masterpiece of length and anticipation, of effort and strength.

Jalen Pickett is Penn State's everything, an All-American, an All-B10 1st team guard who averages 17.5 points a game, 7.4 rebounds, and 5.4 assists while shooting nearly 50% from the floor.

In the Big Ten Championship, he had his worst game of the season.

Pickett scored just 11 points on 4 of 13 shooting, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists with 2 turnovers. Playing four games in four days will certainly hamper your effectiveness, but a day after dropping 28 against IU, the Brandon Newman effect took hold.

Brandon Newman's ascension is no accident and neither is Purdue's 5 game winning streak to end the season.

But Newman has not risen alone.

Mason Gillis and Brandon Newman do a lot together. They ride to games. They ride home together. They live together, I mean, and they've spent the last couple years bouncing back and forth between the bench and starting, playing and not playing together.

Now as Purdue steps into the NCAA Tournament as a #1 seed for the first time under Matt Painter, it will do it with Mason Gillis and Brandon Newman both playing the best basketball of their careers. Because of that, they will now start together.

If Brandon Newman's play is about his defense, Mason Gillis' is about how the dichotomy of his points don't match with his collection of bruises.

Gillis is one part brute, all parts bruises, diving and recklessly aggressive, surging towards every loose or about to be loose ball. He's a WWE superstar in a Purdue jersey for all the times he hits the mat. His finishing move seems to be grabbing an offensive rebound out of nowhere, but when he gets the ball on the perimeter all that rough housing goes away.

All that muscle and momentum is replaced instead by the prettiest, picture-perfect shooting form this side of Rick Mount. While there's been a lot of guards that have knocked down a lot of three-pointers for Purdue, it's Mason Gillis that holds the record of made threes in Mackey Arena with nine. He did it in 25 minutes.

While Caleb Furst's length and defense has been critical for Purdue throughout the season, Purdue's team needs shootings and while the guards struggled, Gillis offered Painter his best chance for points next to Zach Edey. Gillis had 20 in the first game of the Big Ten Tournament on 7 of 8 shooting.

But the battle wages on inside his body from the way Gillis plays on the court.

He tells me he's great right now, physically, right after telling me the real answer when I asked him about maintaining the back injury that cost him three games in early December.

"It's gonna be an issue for me my entire life," he tells me before sighing, and moving onto what he has to believe. "But yeah, I'm great right now. It takes a lot of effort to keep it where I'm at already. Just based on my build and just my natural," he seems to struggle for the words here and settles with. "Being."

"The way you play?" I offer him.

Gillis laughs a little and flashes that big grin of his. "Exactly, yes. I take a lot of beating. I play hard. I know what I need to do to be safe and keep my body healthy and so it's just a constant process of doing that every day."

And it's now culminated in a reinvigorated Purdue team heading to Columbus with the #1 seed and a potential second round match-up against an uber-talented Memphis team or an under seeded Florida Atlantic squad.

Purdue's new look starting lineup is going to have a big say in if Matt Painter and his Boilermakers can finally break through, first to New York City, and then all the way to Houston.

But the rotation change doesn't change anything in how the two players approach their performance.

Brandon Newman still does the same thing after the game.

"Usually the first thing I check is how many turnovers I had," Newman says about what stats he checks after a game.

"I think there's probably like a little boost in confidence," he tells me after being put in the starting lineup. "I would say just to know that our staff believes in us that much to put us[Gillis and Newman] in the lineup at a crucial point in the time of the year. You know, it being tournament time. Just that belief, that trust."

So far, the duo has responded. It's what Gillis expected, especially of the guy he's gotten closest with since coming to campus.

"We've been roommates for a long time, two to three years now. So we've gotten really close and just to see his work ethic, his attitude going into every game, after every game. Through the goods and the bads," he's telling me ahead of the Big Ten Tournament. "He's never lost believe in himself. Others may not know everything he can do, but I know what he can do. He knows what he can do."

After the Big Ten Tournament? Everyone else knows what they can do, too.

But for Gillis and Newman and this team, it's not about what everyone else is saying.

"And so we just always talk to each other," Gillis is saying about his relationship with Newman. "Encourage each other just to keep going. You know, nothing bad can happen from 'keep going'. But if you stop then you never know what good could happen and like in our position, if we stop working or if we stop playing hard, we won't get anywhere."

This year, anywhere is a place in Texas.

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