The old adage in sports is ‘numbers never lie’. In this age of sports, numbers reign supreme, with saber metrics taking over baseball and QBR determining legacies in football and the plus-minus ruling playing time in basketball.
But sometimes the old stats and the old ‘eye test’ are all you need to judge a game.
Ball State’s trip into Mackey Arena to take on in-state opponent Purdue showed just that. Looking at the box score it’s no wonder what team won the game.
The stats that have been trusted throughout time tell the story. Ball State turned the ball over 17 times to Purdue’s nine. Ball State shot 34.6 percent from the field to Purdue’s 44.2 percent.
Plug those numbers into the complicated formula that is basketball, and you get Ball State 56 and Purdue 66.
The box score from this one walked hand and hand with Ball State’s season. In losses this season, Ball State has shot 36.6 percent from the field and turned the ball over an average of 17.5 times.
Even the Cardinals one constant positive, the ability to get the charity stripe more than their opponent, which they had done in every game thus far, was taken away, losing that battle 19 to 25.
Purdue’s freshman center A.J. Hammons was a catalyst for these problems for Ball State. The first half the freshman had was simply dominating. Hammons finished the first half with 10 points, 4 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. His play also got two of Ball State’s big men, Zach Fields and Matt Kamieniecki in foul trouble, both picking up two fouls.
Even Ball State’s adjustments to limit Hammons numbers in the second half, weren’t enough to make him fail the ‘eye test’.
“We just tried to make him play in a crowd,” coach Billy Taylor said. “We just tried to limit the amount of clean touches he got.”
At 8:33 mark Ball State was playing with confidence. Majok Majok stepped up to the line and sank a pair of foul shots to give Ball State a 47-45 lead. The only bad part about that, Hammons subbed in on the dead ball.
The ensuing possession Hammons caught the ball on the left block in traffic, and with two of Fields’ big paws in his face, knocked down a baby hook. When Ball State tried to answer, Marcus Posley drove the ball hard to the hoop, but was meet by Hammons. Hammons seemingly just snatched the ball out of the air, fired an outlet pass to Terone Johnson for a lay-up and the foul. 50-47, and Purdue never trailed again.
The other number that was the story of the game was 32. That is how many shots guards Jesse Berry (20) and Posley (12) combined to take.
Purdue’s frontcourt of Hammons and Jacob Lawson really forced the ball away from the paint for Ball State’s offense, and that was not what the Cardinals wanted to do.
“We wanted to get the ball inside first, and play off that,” Berry said. “It didn’t work out that way, and we went away from the game plan, and when you go away from the game plan you usually don’t win.”
Berry and Posley were forced to create shots late in the shot clock all game, but sometimes it worked. At a couple crucial points in the game Berry knocked down threes to send murmurs of worry throughout Mackey that the home crowd was about to see their Boilers have a repeat of the Eastern Michigan game, and lose to yet another Mid-American conference team.
Purdue came into the game 10th in the nation in rebounding, yet the final tally gave them only one more than Ball State (33-32). This was a point of pride for coach Taylor, and a sign that his team fought hard, and tried to give itself a chance to win.
“Coming into the game if you told me that we’d be even on the boards with them I would be very pleased with that outcome,” Taylor said. “I would have said we would be there with a chance to win the game, and we were, we were very competitive.”
The aforementioned ‘eye test’ is something that the old guard uses, its though is I’ don’t care about numbers, just let me watch the game.’ And in this one, there were times that Ball State looked like they were going to pull it out.
The Cardinals definitely felt this way.
“We let this one get away,“ Berry said. “We definitely let this one get away, we had a chance even late, and when we took the lead.”
With this attitude, the Cardinals are confident in their growth going towards MAC play.
“I’ve seen great growth in terms in our guys believing in each other,” Taylor said. “And we took great steps forward tonight.”
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