MINNEAPOLIS — 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.
PRESEASON QUESTIONS
On Tuesday at the Target Center, Matt Painter was asked often about last season, about this season, about Kris Murray, about the transfer portal, about Kris Murray, about his young guards, about Zach Edey, and then again about Kris Murray.
Such was life during station-to-station merry-go-around interview sessions when you're geographically located somewhere near Iowa, I guess.
Anyway, there were lots of questions. So many questions.
But as is the case every year at this time, there are questions that only competition can answer. Here are some of them.
How quickly do the young guards come along? Purdue is quite smitten — that's right, smitten — with Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer. Painter went as far on Tuesday as to compare Smith favorably to pro Payton Pritchard at this stage of his career.
Problem is, obviously, that neither of them have played a college game for Purdue yet and inexperience tends to stick out even more in the backcourt. Only playing can solve this, as there's no magic experience serum.
For freshmen, it's always about fitting in before one can stand out, and that'll be the case with these two, but it's also fair to presume there will be a robust amount of responsibility falling in their laps, especially Smith, Purdue's only pure player at his position.
This is the future of Purdue's backcourt — two potentially great players for the Boilermakers — but the future's also now for both of 'em and how they handle playing through inevitable mistakes, that'll be a significant factor in Purdue's outcomes this season.
How does Zach Edey handle alpha status? For all the justified consternation about Purdue's lack of both depth and experience at point guard, you could definitely argue that Purdue's most important decision-maker offensively will be Zach Edey, because of the volume of touches he'll be handling, the overwhelming attention he'll draw and the opportunities he'll have to weaponize that attention.
