The Farrell critics (and I was one) were not "wrong" about Matt Farrell. He flat out was bad last year. Did not look like he belonged on a D-I team. Anyone who thought he would be this good this year was basing it off nothing but homerism.
The kid has been balling out and I'm glad he turned things around so much.
I only start with this post because I've avoided the ND Basketball thread since the Nova game (took me some time to recover).
I could go player by player through the Mike Brey era and point out players like Farrell who have thrived in Junior/Red Shirt Senior year, but I think you know, which sort of disappoints me in this type of response. Sorry, they were flat out wrong. There are no two ways about that. Saying someone doesn't belong, not even be on the team, and then watching them be the best offensive player on a top 25 team the next year is, well, exactly the definition of being wrong. You can call it "homerism" if it makes you feel better about being so down on a player, that's fine, but don't act as if this hasn't been the norm in Brey's tenure. No one said he was great, or even good last year, but the blatant attacks were pretty brutal. Again, saying it's "homerism" is just trying to make people feel better about being so wrong.
It's one thing to say "Hey, he shouldn't be playing right now" and "Hey, he shouldn't even be on the team". He played instrumental minutes in the tourney last year, and has balled out this year. There is a whole hell of a lot of room between "Not a DI player" and what he's doing now. Thinking he was going to be this good? No, no one thought that. But people did think he should be removed from the team. Again, there is a right and wrong answer, and that was wrong.
Hat's off to Matt Painter. He adjusted perfectly to our game plan. Now, it helped that Vasturia was awful, and VJ decided since things weren't going his way, he'd throw in the towel on defense, but that's the first time in a while I think I've seen Brey get out coached.
Geben was good today at what we asked him to do. Problem was, Painter countered our line-up and created mismatches. He played Swanigan and Edwards (the good one, not the out of control guard (Sorry NDGrad, couldn't help it)). Bonize had to guard another undersized 4 that could blow by him. Geben couldn't guard Swanigan on the outside (he played him pretty well in the post).
I don't agree with NDGrad that Purdue is a bad team, that's silly (no, they aren't the defending champ, but did they play in the Fiesta Bowl last year? You'd be hard pressed to find any respectable person who says Purdue isn't a good team). But to have them play our game and get beat, that's tough to swallow.
We need a second big, and stat. Give Mooney a shot. Give Burns a shot. Torres is pretty bad, and basically removes one option on offense. We can't count on downshifting all the time. Sometimes, it just isn't gonna work.
EDIT: If anything, I would have loved to see us play 4 around 1 with the 1 being Geben.
EDIT2: Was the foul situation in the second half actually 17-6? That is literally mind-blowing if true. I even made the comment that Swanigan would have to literally punch someone to pick up number 4.
