The Weekly Word is GoldandBlack.com's weekly, obviously, column covering Purdue football, basketball and recruiting, as well as college sports issues, the true meaning of life, or whatever other topics might come to mind in a given week.
FEARFUL PREDICTIONS
A GoldandBlack.com tradition like no other ...
Some web sites can have their fearless predictions. Not us. Ours terrify us.
Here are this year's Fearful Predictions for the 2021-2022 Purdue men's basketball season.
• Purdue will have two centers make All-Big Ten in some form or another. That might mean one first-teamer and a third-teamer, or a first-teamer and an honorable mention, or whatever, but there's little question that both Trevion Williams and Zach Edey are among the top 15-20 players in the Big Ten. There are not-unrealistic scenarios where both could be first-team sorts of players splitting minutes.
• The Boilermakers should lead the Big Ten this season in offensive rebounding, by percentage. Trevion Williams and Zach Edey are going to be real forces in that regard, and Caleb Furst could be a shot in the arm, too.
Illinois will be formidable with Kofi Cockburn back, and Michigan State is always an offensive rebounding force by design, but this might be Purdue's year in this category.
It needs to be a big part of Purdue's offensive formula, because it has the personnel and between the post options and Jaden Ivey's ability to get to the basket, it should have plenty of opportunities for follows against compromised defenses.
