Rebounding concerns abound

By Paul Trembacki
Sports Editor

Purdue men's basketball coach Gene Keady was watching the Chicago Bears' 13-6 win over Minnesota on ESPN Sunday night and he was impressed by the play of Chicago linebacker Brian Urlacher's ability to run to the ball.

"That's the way we need to rebound," Keady said. "He covers sideline to sideline, end zone to end zone. He's fun to watch, isn't he? He just plays, and that's what we need to do — just play the game of basketball.

"We'll figure it out because we do have good kids that are coachable."

The coaches have been putting members of the Purdue men's basketball team through drill after drill in practice in an effort to solve the Boilers' rebounding woes.

The Boilers (2-1), who play Butler (4-0) at 7 tonight in Mackey Arena, have been out-rebounded all five times they've played this season — in three regular-season games and in two exhibitions. And it hasn't even been close. Over those five games, Purdue has averaged 37.2 boards per game and allowed an average of 48.8.

Keady said the players just need to make rebounding a priority and get into a mindset of following the ball and assuming that all shots will be misses.

"I think we've got a bit of an offensive train of thought," Keady said. "Offense is too big a priority with them. I don't think we need to worry about that because we've got some scorers. We need to rebound and stop people and then get the mix right where offense becomes part of the system."

Stanford center Curtis Borchardt had 20 rebounds as the Cardinal (3-0) beat Purdue 78-62 Saturday in Indianapolis. He said Purdue's only flaw was not going after the ball aggressively enough.

To make Purdue's lineup bigger and full of better rebounders, Keady might experiment by moving 6-foot-6 power forward Rodney Smith to small forward and starting 6-8 sophomore Brett Buscher at power forward. Darmetreis Kilgore, a 6-5 junior, would move to shooting guard, replacing senior Maynard Lewis.

However, it is highly unlikely that Keady will do that because Lewis is Purdue's leading scorer, averaging 15.7 points per game, and best offensive rebounder. And his absence would be costly for Purdue's already poor offensive rebounding effort.

"Offensive rebounding is probably the worst part of our game," Keady said. "They need to change their mindset toward understanding the game better and we need to do a good job teaching them as coaches."

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Sports editor:
Paul Trembacki

Assistant sports editor:
Doug Healey

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