Purdue cruises past Robert Morris in advance of key stretch

Following their businesslike 84-46 dispatching of an overwhelmed Robert Morris team on this sleepy Friday afternoon in Mackey Arena, the 24th-ranked Boilermakers now stand at the precipice of what could be a season-making — or season-breaking — swing.

First, it's a trip to ranked Florida State, then a visit to apparent Big Ten front-runner Michigan to open conference play. Then, the Boilermakers host Maryland for the only of these five games to be played at home. They then visit a Texas team fresh off a win over top-10 North Carolina, before heading to Indy to meet ranked Notre Dame at the Crossroads Classic.

"This five-game stretch will determine what this team is all about," senior Ryan Cline said.

In that context, Robert Morris was an irrelevant game, typical winter buy-game fodder.

But in the bigger picture, maybe it served as a productive gauge of this new-look Boilermaker team's attention span, crammed between the Charleston Classic and as daunting a stretch of games as Purdue will see all season, played at a weird hour in front of a student section-less crowd.

"After you lose one that we thought got away from us down in Charleston (vs. Virginia Tech), you always want to come back and have the same mindset," senior Grady Eifert said. "We played hard down there, but it wasn't hard enough, and Coach talked about that, that we have to be great every night.

"When you look at this game, with the holidays, there's a lot of distractions going on, but you have to lock in and get everyone ready to go."

Matt Painter lamented lapses in consistency following the Robert Morris game, but nothing related to readiness.

And the results wouldn't seem to raise any red flags.

Purdue bolted to a quick 10-2 lead and was never credibly threatened, en route to leading by as many as 43.

"I thought they were ready to play," Painter said, "and they gave that off leading into the game."

Carsen Edwards scored 19 with five assists and four steals and Ryan Cline added 17 on 5-of-7 shooting from three-point range, but defense ruled the day for Purdue.

Robert Morris made fewer than a third of its shots and turned the ball over on 17 occasions, leading to 16 Purdue points. The Boilermakers, as could have been expected, dominated the glass 43-27, and lived on the offensive boards again, with 14 second- and third-chance opportunities that led to 15 points.

Again, Painter lamented lapses consistency, "good stretches and bad stretches," citing shot selection and "poise" as two subcategories of the term.

"What saved them was the ability to stop them," Painter said, "and not let them get going offensively."

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