3 Days to Purdue Basketball: Carsen Edwards

I wrote back in August about Carsen Edward’s off-season work outs with the Shot Doctor Joey Burton.

Purdue fans got to see the results in Taipei.

Carsen Edwards was a gunner last year. He came in and he went 100% 115% of the time. He shot, then he shot again, and it was uneven but brilliant. We haven’t had a player like him around West Lafayette in a long time.

Now he’s making his jumper and the entire Big Ten should be scared. Carsen Edwards spent most of the World University Games eating countries alive.

Carsen’s freshman season was a bit of a strange trip. He came in as the only freshman, and joined a group of mostly established players who played a certain way. He was at times the best player on the court, a lot of times really, but he battle freshman consistency issues. He struggled to score at the rim. He turned the ball over too much. He wasn’t making his jump shots. He was taking bad shots.

Going into this off-season, I thought the important thing for Carsen would be to learn the offense, the ins and outs, and take some cues from shooters like Dakota and Cline. They can make shots from anywhere, but they know what a good shot is and they don’t settle for less.

I was wrong. Carsen is going to Carsen. He just needed to work on his shot, and he did. He added arc to his shot. He worked on his pace. In the World University Games he nearly single-handedly brought Purdue back to beat Israel in overtime by scoring 36 points. Most of them coming on pull-ups 3’s that were unguardable and in close proximity to crimes against humanity.

In the entire tournament, he just kept chucking, pulling up from anywhere, without any warning, and they just kept going in.

Carsen didn’t need to change. He just needed to knock down his shots. Now he is.

Carsen finished his freshman year with the sixth highest point total for a Boilermaker freshman. Purdue was 18-3 with him as a starter last year, which is great news because he will fit perfectly into the starting this year next to four seniors.

He settles perfectly into an offense that needs someone who can break down a defense off the dribble. He now has the experience of an entire Big Ten Season and a deep run into the NCAA tournament.

After striking out with multiple recruiting classes while attempting to get better athletes, Carsen is the exact player Coach Painter had been trying to find. He’s the athlete that can play against anyone, and the kind of kid that puts in the work to improve from day one to the last.

He is prime position to help propel this team this year and in the future. This year he settles in with seniors, next year, he’ll take over with Eastern.

The future is bright in big part because of #3.