Game Preview - NCAA East Region: #1 Purdue, #16 FDU

Sometimes narratives write themselves and there's plenty obvious headlines to find when #1 Purdue takes on #16 FDU in Columbus, Ohio on Friday evening.

The most obvious story will be the size. FDU is the smallest team in the country while Purdue has 7-4 Zach Edey, college basketball's most dominant big man. Zach Edey is already the Big Ten Player of the Year and is the most likely National Player of the Year after finishing the season scoring 22.3 points a game and grabbing 12.8 rebounds.

Fairleigh Dickinson's tallest player is 6-6. They are the country's shortest team. Their starters go 5-8, 5-9, 6-3, 6-4, and 6-6.

Purdue's average height is 6-6.

There's also that other discrepancy in value in their seeding. Purdue is the #1 seed while FDU is the #16.

It has happened, the ultimate Cinderella story, and a #2 seed has already fallen with Princeton taking down Arizona on Thursday. So you might excuse FDU's coach Tobin Anderson for his exuberance in exclaiming to his team after it beat Texas Southern in the play-in game on Wednesday, "I walked into breakfast this morning and (assistant coach) Kam Murrell said to me, 'The more I watch Purdue, the more I think we can beat them.' Let's go shock the world."

But like David, defeating the Goliath of Zach Edey and Purdue will be a tall task.

FDU's pace and three-point was on display in Dayton when they won their #16 seed play-in game against Texas Southern.

Five different players hit a three and as a team, FDU shot 11-27 from the perimeter. Ansley Almonor led all scorers with 27 points, but they found points throughout their starting five. All five starters scored in double-figures with just 6 points off the bench.

But even more than their perimeter shooting was their ability to get into the paint and get to the line. Almonor went a perfect 8 from 8 from the line and as a team, FDU got to 31 attempts and made 27 of them.

They will try to use Purdue's size against them, running the p ace and driving by Edey and Purdue's bigs.

As a team, FDU is just a mediocre three-point shooting team on thes eason, making 34.7% of their three-point attempts. They knock down 75% of their free throw attempts.

But real concerns exist, obviously, about their rebounding and their defense. They're the 359th worst ranked defense in the country. Even if they can push tempo, they don't appear to have an answer for Zach Edey or Purdue's top-10 offense.

Purdue's goals should be simple in Columbus. Take their opponent serious, rebound, and play hard. They have more talent and size everywhere, and they can use FDU's insistence to run and gun as practice against a team not in the Big Ten.

Zach Edey's advantage goes without saying. Look for Purdue's bench to really make a difference against a thin FDU team that will somehow try to avoid foul trouble inside and on the glass.

Trey Kaufman-Renn hasn't gotten many chances to play against smaller bigs, but if Purdue is up big early, expect him to get plenty of chances to put on a show in his first NCAA Tournament.

On the podium on Thursday, Matt Painter had this to say about FDU: "Like everyone else, we're excited to be in the NCAA Tournament. Our guys have worked very hard to be in a great position, but just really looking forward to the challenge of playing Fairleigh Dickinson, who had a great win last night. Did some really good things.

Really like their back court, their quickness, their skill, their ability to drive the basketball and just their overall aggressiveness. They have interchangeable pieces, they're tough to go against, but their athleticism and their length.

And we'll have to do a good job of taking care of the basketball on the offensive end and be able to contain them while also guarding the 3-point line. They hit seven 3s in the first half which was a big difference going into halftime. Made a couple more after that.

But just really, really impressed with Fairleigh Dickinson. Have a really good coach. You can see they're connected on both ends of the floor. And just looking forward to that challenge."

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