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UPDATE (5:41 pm): 3/18 Purdue hopes to stop Saints from marching, rebounding

SPOKANE, Wash. – For Purdue to beat Siena, the Boilermakers must stop the Siena's transition game and out rebound it.

“Offensively we’re a quick up team,” senior forward Alex Franklin from the Saints said. “We like to get out on the fast break and create opportunities on transition. Defensively we like to apply pressure, pressure other teams, create turnovers and get run outs from that.”

Purdue (27-5) will have to stop Siena’s (26-6) three seniors, forward Edwin Ubilies, guard Ronald Moore and Alex Franklin. All three were selected to the MAAC All-Tournament team. Franklin is also the MAAC Player of the Year and Moore currently leads the nation in assists.

“They've got a lot of guys that score for the team and they got about four guys that average over 10 points,” Purdue junior guard E’Twaun Moore said. “They start up top with the guards, just locking down and letting them penetrate and letting them do the things they want to do offensively. As long as we contain the guards and rebound and play good solid team defense, hopefully we should be okay.”

Siena is averaging 38.3 rebounds per game while Purdue averages 33.3 rebounds per game.

“You got to box out and put a body on them,” coach Matt Painter said. “Even though that sounds simple it still is so difficult to do when you got guys like Rossiter and Franklin, Edwin Ubiles, who is a long kind of a combo guard that can get to the glass and we just have to do a good job of putting a body on them. I think it starts keeping them from an offensive rebounding standpoint from keeping the ball in front of us.”

Purdue has a higher free-throw percentage with .726 while Siena is shooting .670 from the line. Purdue has more blocks on the season with 143 compared to Siena’s 118. The statistic Purdue has to take advantage of is the turnovers. Siena has turned over the ball 404 times this season while Purdue has turned it over 348 times.

“They’re a team that really plays hard,” junior forward JaJuan Johnson said. “Their point guard pretty much controls a lot of the game. He led the nation in assists for a reason and they have capable scorers outside of him also. It’s going to be a real good game.”

The Boilermakers will play the Saints at 2:30 p.m. (ET) this Friday at Spokane arena in Washington.