Analysis ($): Stat Blast | Takeaways | Wrap Video
For Carsen Edwards, this was the continuation of a sudden emergence; for Caleb Swanigan, it was just more of the same.
Polar opposites as players, the two Boilermakers combined to carry Purdue to a 79-68 win Saturday over NJIT in a game that could easily be profiled as one to just "get through." Purdue just got off a plane from Mexico and leaves Tuesday for Wednesday's marquee matchup with No. 10 Louisville.
Vincent Edwards scoffed at such a suggestion.
"We don't overlook any opponent," he said. "If we want to be a Final Four team, an NCAA Tournament team, a Big Ten championship team, you have to play like champions and prepare yourself for every game and treat everybody the same. … You have to respect that. Somebody somewhere's got somebody talented enough to beat us."
NJIT did. Guard Damon Lynn buried eight threes and totaled 33 points, making his Highlanders a difficult unit for the heavily favored Boilermakers to shake on this quiet Saturday afternoon during Thanksgiving break in West Lafayette.
But it was Edwards' namesake - Carsen - and his fellow frontcourt bookend - Swanigan - that saw the Boilermakers through.
As has become his norm, to the point that some games it all just blends in, Swanigan finished with 22 points and 13 rebounds. He now has recorded a double-double in all but one of Purdue's six games thus far. And he's shooting 61 percent from the floor.
"I'm just playing off my teammates and playing hard," Swanigan said of a start to his season defined by consistency and efficiency. "Don't take difficult shots because you can get the one you want pretty much any time."
Swanigan scored his 22 points off just six of them. He made them all, plus 10 free throws on as many attempts.
"He's just letting the game come to him," Matt Painter said.
Carsen Edwards gave much the same explanation - however unexciting it might be - for his surge of late. The freshman was the difference-maker in Purdue's Cancun Challenge title game win over Auburn and made a similar impact back in Mackey Arena a few days later.
The rookie scored 19 points in 23 minutes, pestering NJIT's zone with his ability to shoot over it or break it down with baseline drives, that dimension that he - and only he - gives Purdue offensively from the backcourt.
"I'm just trying to pick my spots," Edwards said.
He picked them well against the Highlanders, particularly in the second half, when he scored 13 straight points for Purdue between the 15:30 and 11:00 marks to help propel them to a lead that peaked at 19. It was just a three-point game at half after NJIT - paced by Lynn's blazing long-range shooting - closed the first half on a 10-1 run.
But Swanigan scored on a jumper from the middle of NJIT's zone to open the second half and drew a foul, following up the three-point play with a bucket off Vincent Edwards' drive and assist.
After Dakota Mathias scored off a steal and the Highlanders dunked to snap a 7-0 Purdue run, Carsen Edwards drained a three, starting that stretch he scored 13 straight for the Boilermakers.
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