Purdue vs. Duke - The Match-ups

Has there been a match up that, on paper, looks more dismal to Purdue's chances in the last 3 years than this one?

Duke has height, their front courtrotation averages 6'10 with their centerpiece (pun intended) standing 7'1.

Duke has depth, they can shuffle as many as 5 players onto the floor that stand at least 6'8.

Duke has talent, their starting 5 averaged 4.4 stars coming out of high school according to Rivals.com and 4 of them were McDonald All-Americans.

Duke has experience, they start 2 Seniors and 3 Juniors and have 37 NCAA tournament games between them.

Duke has winners, they have averaged 30 wins in their last 3 seasons and are 5-2 in NCAA tournament games in that same span.

After the jump, I'll try and talk you off the ledge.

As everyone knows, the key to advancing in the NCAA tournament is match-ups, match-ups, match-ups, and on Friday the key to a Purdue win is which team takes advantage of theirs.

Both Purdue and Duke play a ferocious and suffocating style of defense that, while predicated on team defense, couldn't be farther apart in their implementation. Purdue loves to guard the ball on the perimeter, understanding that the further the ball is from the basket, the harder it will be to put the round ball through the round hoop. This is achieved by pressuring, to put it lightly, the ball handler and aggressively defending the passing lanes. Duke, on the other hand, does not fear teams driving the lane or throwing it inside as their height, while doesn't translate into blocked shots, is there to disrupt and force poor shots. Those poor shots turn into rebounds which is a category that they routinely dominate in.

Offensively, both teams rely heavily on shooting the ball but Duke benefits greatly with offensive rebounds, ranked 9th in the country according to kenpom, which gives them easy put backs or another chance to run their offense.

So, without further adieu, here are my predicted match-up predictions.

Despite the rumor going around, I am not Matt Painter, but if I was the first thing I would do when beginning my match-up selections would be to pick who Chris Kramer was going to guard.

Painter has two choices, he could assign Kramer to Jon Scheyer, who has been struggling with his shot as of late and who Kramer physically matches up very well with or he could tell Kramer to go out and try his hand on Kyle Singler, who has 'the best overall player' tag that typically draws the likes of Kramer, but who has both a height and weight advantage on.

Here is what I would do, I would but Kramer on Scheyer and take him completely out of the equation. Then I would throw a combination of Grant, Barlow and Byrd at Singler and tell them that they have 15 fouls between them and I want Singler to be able to remember every single of them.

JaJuan Johnson will guard Brian Zoubek and will have to work like hell to keep him off the offensive glass. That is where Zoubek scores his points, on put backs from missed shots.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have been very surprised by how well Lewis Jackson has played this tournament. I felt that he was going to force things to much, trying to do too much in attempt to distribute and score. Luckily, he has been solid and worthy of being a starter, even if Robbie Hummel didn't get injured. Unfortunately, Lewis Jackson will have to be willing to guard Nolan Smith the whole game because that is his only option, and even then he gives up 5 inches and 20 pounds.

That leaves E'Twuan Moore guarding Lance Thomas who could also draw Singler depending upon who is on the floor for Purdue at the time.

Lewis Jackson (G) - Nolan Smith (G)

Chris Kramer (G) - Jon Scheyer (G)

Keaton Grant (G) - Kyle Singler (F)

E'Twaun Moore (G) - Lance Thomas (F)

JaJuan Johnson (F) - Brian Zoubek (C)

So that is my guess, what are your thoughts?