Braden Smith

The rest of it was like kind of didn't matter that much, which is a bummer because they had some flashes of better defense at times in the first half.

Kobe Brown played real minutes and did Kobe Brown-y things, and they went to a full bench group that kind of held up in a way that I didn't expect, and Braden Smith was not killing them in this game like he has been.

They had good possession battle stuff going on, even though their rebounding was just kind of okay.

And they were up eight.

The basketball gods have got to steer that layup in, and it was not even close.

Not even close.

Braden Smith, to his credit, much better defensive execution in this game.

Not that he was shutting anybody down, but he did not have any just completely bot switches like in the last game.

But I want to pivot back to the Boom because...

Obviously, the 38th overall pick in this year's draft was Braden Smith, someone you spent a lot of time playing against in the Big Ten.

Just talk to me about what it was like going up against him as an opponent and then how it's been being his teammate and the kind of point guard that he can be for your guys' team this year.

He's an incredible player.

And they knew what they were talking about.

But, yeah, the Pacers, like, you know, you see Braden Smith play tonight, and you're like, holy cow, look how small he is.

Yeah.

And 5'10", 5'11", point guard, I mean, I get he's a good passer, but that's a tough, tough one there to kind of see right now getting any serious minutes in there just by desperation.

Why is he back here?

Braden Smith?

He's ineligible? Oh, no, we just got rid of you.

So you got rebounding and Handel left.

They were a 3. losing him, obviously, for the last two months of the season.

Purdue, meanwhile, brings back certain players that played off the bench last year and played ancillary roles alongside Braden Smith, Fletcher Lawyer, and Trey Kaufman-Wren.

C.J. Cox is back.

Ja'Kari Harris is back.

But, you know, if it's not Illinois, I think it is Michigan State.

You know, I don't think Purdue, you know, obviously lost Braden Smith and, you know, some other guys that are going to hurt.

But I think it's between those two teams.

I'm going to side with the guy that's done it the most, and that's Tom Izzo, who's going to get his guys to play defense.

Yeah, it was between Nebraska and Purdue for me, you know, and who the disappointment is because, you know, they both carry a name brand.

Obviously, Purdue has a bigger name brand with, you know, the success Painter has had recently.

And when you've got to replace somebody like Braden Smith, it's not going to be easy.

I mean, that guy ran that team probably every day in practice, every locker room, you know, and that's irreplaceable.

I mean, Jalen Slauson has some good defensive plays.

I wanted to even throw a shout out to Braden Smith in his five minutes.

I thought he had two like pretty solid defensive plays on Tyrese Maxey at one point.

And I'm probably like picking at straws here because he like had a play where he stayed in front of Maxey as he's going to the rim and he had his hands up the whole time.

Probably so.

But like it was encouraging to see because the guy is 5'10", second round pick.

You know, who knows what we're going to see from Braden Smith in his career.

But him doing that against Maxey, I thought was just I wanted to give him a shout out in this segment.

So 17 points for you.

Merck gets a triple double before Braden Smith.

We gave you 10 points for

that.