Team prepares for Iowa

By Kyle Charters
Senior Writer

In Purdue's first game against Iowa this season – an 83-73 loss in Mackey Arena – Hawkeye forward Reggie Evans had 18 rebounds and 17 points. And that was on Jan. 13 when Boiler juniors John Allison and Rodney Smith were still healthy.

Now Purdue (13-11, 5-8 Big Ten) has to face Iowa (17-8, 6-6) again – this time without Allison and Smith, the former frontcourt starters, who are both out for the season with foot injuries.

"I don't think anyone in the league has matched up with (Evans) very well this year," said Keady, whose Boilers play the Hawkeyes at 8 tonight in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. "So it's a situation where you're going to try to keep him out of double-figure rebounding, play post defense to the best of your ability and hope we can keep him blocked off the boards and just do a yeoman's job on him for 40 minutes."

Evans, a 6-foot-8 junior, is averaging 15 points and leading the Big Ten in rebounds with 11.8 per game.

"It's going to be a tough job for us, but we're just going to have to block him out and try to keep him off the boards," said freshman forward Brett Buscher. "That's the best thing he does is crash the boards real hard and that's how he gets a lot of his points."

With Allison and Smith out of action, the burden of guarding Evans falls on Buscher, along with sophomore center Adam Wetzel and freshman center Kevin Garrity. The three, who combine to average 9.2 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, are the only active Boilers taller than 6-3.

"It's going to be a tough task," said Wetzel. "You've got two freshmen who aren't used to this and I'm not exactly the most experienced of the group."

Rebounding has been a consent problem for the Boilers this season. They rank ninth in the conference in rebounding margin at -3.7. The Hawkeyes, in contrast, are second in the league. They average 7.2 more boards per game than their opponents.

"It's going to be difficult, but we've got to accept it and go at it, be aggressive and hope for the best," said Wetzel.

For Purdue to be successful against Iowa, Wetzel said, the guards are going to have to help on the interior.

Sophomore guard Kenneth Lowe agreed.

"We're going to have to try to maybe get two bodies on (Evans) because he's a great rebounder," said Lowe. "He's real strong so we're just going to have to try to keep a body on him. It's going to be a tough game so we're going to have to limit his touches on the rebounds."

Lowe, however, said the guards also need to be aware of the Hawkeyes' abilities on the perimeter. Iowa is hitting 35.4 percent of its 3-point attempts.

Senior guard Dean Oliver, who averages 14.3 points and 4.5 assists per game, is making 34 percent from behind the arc. And junior Ryan Hogan and freshman Brody Boyd are hitting more than 36 percent of their attempts.

Even with junior guard Luke Recker, Iowa's best 3-point shooter and leading scorer at 18.1 points per game, out with a broken right kneecap, Lowe realizes Iowa still has plenty of good outside threats.

"They got some guys who can really shoot the ball," said Lowe. "They've even got some big guys who can shoot it from deep. So we're going to have to defend the 3-point line."

Purdue, which leads the Big Ten in 3-point shooting defense, didn't do well in that category in its last game – a 92-71 loss at Penn State on Saturday. The Boilers allowed the Nittany Lions to make 15 of 22 shots from 3-point range.

Lowe said the performance in State College, Pa. – along with Purdue's earlier work against Evans – needs to change for tonight's game.

"We're going to have to go out and play like it's our last game," said Lowe. "We need to get this one. We're just going to have to go out there and play hard and do what we can to try to get a win."

Team prepares for Iowa

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