After giving a brief overview of what happened with the 2019-20 Purdue Basketball Season, let’s take a bit of a deeper dive into the different position groups and the individual players’ performance for the year. This isn’t going to be a game by game breakdown but more of a holistic view of each player and if applicable, what they need to work on moving into next year.

Now that we have covered every guard on the roster and their respective seasons, we will move onto the next position group, the forwards! In this group, we will cover the Senior Evan Boudreaux, Sophomore Aaron Wheeler, and Freshman Walk-on Matt Frost. I will also address this now in case anyone becomes confused later. Trevion Williams is listed on Purdue’s roster as a forward but he will not be covered in the forward’s section. He will be covered as a center. That being said, the forward position had a very hot and cold season as a whole. There were games where the forward position was one of strength and others where it was more of a detriment. What happened and what does Purdue need from it’s returning players to avoid the same happening in 2020-21?

Evan Boudreaux

Evan Boudreaux entered this year as one of only 3 seniors on the team alongside Tommy Luce and grad transfer Jahaad Proctor. Evan came to Purdue from Dartmouth with 2 years of eligibility remaining. After a disappointing 2018-19 season where it seemed that Evan had issues adjusting to the speed and physicality of the Big Ten. He also got lost a bit in the rotation with the emergence of then-freshman Trevion Williams. That being said, Evan is a very hardworking and smart player and Purdue fans were hoping that after a year in the program, he would find his place on the team this year and he did that.

Preseason

As mentioned, in 2018-19, Evan never really found his position on the team and found his minutes being diminished as the season went on. Going into 2019-20 it was expected that he would shift his focus to the 4 spot as he attempted to sure up his role on the team. He had the ability to extend defenses with his shooting and he needed to continue to do this to help free up space inside for Trevion and Matt Haarms. Evan had also shown in the past to have a nose for to ball in rebounding and there was no drop-off in expectation going into his senior season. So to recap, Evan came into 2019-20 with the expectation to help stretch defenses with his shooting, not make many mistakes with his high basketball-IQ, and make those hustle plays in getting rebounds and extending possessions for the Boilermakers.

In-Season Results

I’m very happy to say that Evan both met and exceeded all expectations fans had for him. Evan seemed to take his experience as a junior and grew tremendously with the extra time in the program. It makes me extremely happy to see Evan find the success he did this year because he came to Purdue to experience what it was like playing at a higher level.

This year we saw Evan take a leap forward in rebounding, scoring, and in my opinion his defense. We routinely saw Evan diving for loose balls and in general, making the hustle plays necessary to help Purdue gain extra possessions. I was very impressed with how well EB was able to track down and beat other players to long rebounds. He always put himself in the best possible position to make the play. This shows up on the stat sheet as we see, in fewer games, Evan more than doubled his total rebounds between his junior and senior seasons.

When looking at his shooting numbers, on paper it seems like he regressed a bit, but he really stepped up towards the end of the season when Purdue needed it most. We saw his potential as a 3-point shooter in the Michigan State game in Mackey (3-5) as well as both games against Iowa (6-10 total). But it is a double-edged sword because in other points in the season, like a lot of the team, he struggled with consistency and being able to score across the whole season. That being said, EB scored in the games the Boilers needed most.

Boudreaux also was able to play opportunistic defense all year long. He presented interesting matchup possibilities that the Boilers attempted to exploit as much as possible. It worked as you would expect, when he was lined up against an opponent’s larger power forward he was able to use his, relative, quickness to get around them and avoid playing a more physical game to get to loose balls or rebounds. If he had a smaller defender he could then become the aggressor and use his size against the opponent. Seeing all of the hustle plays from this season, he seemed to take advantage of these matchups as much as possible.

EB: Hustle: At Iowa

Just watch this clip and tell me that he doesn’t understand what gets you playing time at Purdue. We saw this a bit in the past with players like Grady Eifert before him. At this instant, Purdue is up by 17 points with just over 4 minutes to play. It would be easy for players to just let this one go and get back on defense. But Evan doesn’t do that, he puts his body on the line and grabs the rebound to give the ball back to the Boilers. We saw hustle like this all year long out of Evan, but this is one that stands out to me.

EB: Offensive Rebounding

This is just one example of some of the offensive rebounds we saw this year. No one turns to box him out and Evan was able to take advantage of his positioning and timing able to get an easy put back layup. We saw this multiple times this year.

EB: Shooting - Michigan State

Here was a game that showcased EBo’s potential as an offensive mismatch. It was too bad that he wasn’t able to shoot this well all season long. But, that wasn’t the game he was asked to play so I can understand that this wasn’t something we were going to see a lot.

That being said, this was a treat to see Evan have success in a big game in front of the Mackey Crowd.

Evan Boudreaux epitomized what it should mean to play for Purdue. He played hard, he played within himself and gave his all every time he stepped onto the floor. In interviews, he mentioned how he recognized that playing for a coach like Matt Painter meant that nothing was given just because he was a senior. Instead of getting down on the idea, he put his head down and worked his a** off, and that resulted in some great basketball played in 2019-20.

Unfortunately, with the COVID-19 pandemic cutting the season short, we never know what would have happened to close the season. I’m sure it wasn’t the ending he was imagining to his college career, but his play to end the season speaks for itself as we saw him giving his all for the Boilermakers.

Season Stats/Averages: [PurdueSports.com]

GP/GS/Avg Mins/FGM/FGA/FG%/3PT/3PtA/3Pt%/FTM/FTA/FT%/PPG/AvgReb/TotalAST/TotalTO/TotalSTL

30/12/17 /54/136/39.7% /15/49/30.6% /40/48/83.3% /5.4 /4.6 /21 /20 /13

Takeaways

As mentioned before in this article, looking at his numbers laid out on paper doesn’t tell the whole story for Evan and his season. Because of Purdue’s inconsistency this year, Coach Matt Painter mixed up the starting lineup a lot trying to find rotations that worked. With that said, we saw Evan in the starting-five 12 times, and in my opinion, it should have been more. I think his mpg should have also been higher because of how hard he played, but I also understand that he and Aaron Wheeler provide different skill sets that can bring value.

Moving on to his shooting numbers, I choose to look a these with a grain of salt. While I will say I wish his regular FG percentage was higher, he routinely found himself having trouble finishing at the rim over taller defenders. His three-point shooting also is a bit lower than I would have thought just watching him play and not looking at stats too much. He made big shots in big games when they mattered most. He struggled with consistency in other games but his numbers aren’t that bad considering he only took 49 threes on the entire season.

The stats that shine to me on Evans sheet are what I would consider his “hustle” stats. These being free-throws and rebounds (looking at the breakdown of offensive/defensive totals). Evan shot 83.3% from the free-throw line on the season and that is exactly what you want to see from one of your teams’ seniors. While he “only” shot 48 on the season, he was able to make the most of his trips to the charity stripe.

Then there are the rebound numbers, he ended the season pulling down 137 total rebounds where that total only trails Trevion Williams (237). It did surprise me to see that he even outrebounded 7’3 Matt Haarms (133) on the season. He totaled 88 defensive rebounds and 49 offensive rebounds. I love seeing a player like Evan pull down almost 50 offensive boards because offensive rebounds are a great indicator of players putting themselves in a good position, as well as making the hustle plays to beat defenders to the ball. Evan had great ability and desire to make those kinds of plays all season long.

Best Game

I was torn when choosing the best game for Evan from this year because I felt like there were many good candidates. There was his game against Michigan State I highlighted above, there was the game against Wisconsin at home where he logged a double-double, and then both Iowa at home and Iowa in Iowa City. I’m going to break the rules again for Evan and highlight his season performance against the Hawkeyes. In two games against Iowa Evan recorded this total stat-line:

32pts/11-21 from the field/ 6-10 from 3/ 22reb/ 5ast/ 1blk/ 2stls

He routinely out-hustled the Hawks providing energy to the team when they needed it most. Especially the second game in Iowa City when Purdue had their backs against the wall in terms of post-season potential. Evan poured in a 14pt/14reb double-double to put away the Hawkeyes. It was a game where he routinely made the correct play and always seemed to be in the right position.

Final Thoughts

Evan came to Purdue to play at the next level. After struggling in his first season in West Lafayette, he found his role in this program and he thrived in it. Many started to compare his play to that Brian Cardinal, because of his willingness to do the dirty stuff, to get on the floor and put his body on the line. I hope I can speak for all Purdue fans when I say that I appreciated seeing this every time Purdue took the floor. It’s the kind of play Purdue has always demanded and I was happy to see Evan take on that role so well.

Thank you for choosing to spend 2 years in West Lafayette Evan. We appreciate everything you did for Purdue and know that you are a Boilermaker for life. Good luck going forward into the future.

As always, Boiler Up, Hammer Down, Hail Purdue!