Phil Knight bracket takeaways: Purdue dominates Duke to win Legacy title; Villanova goes 0-for-Portland

PORTLAND, Ore. — Upsets, plot developments and performances that will come to define the stories of this season. All of that and a lot more emerged over four days in the Rose City. Sunday brought about the championship games and consolation matchups in the Phil Knight Legacy and Invitational brackets. There is no shortage of things to get to, so this is my final hefty notebook of need-to-knows. If you want to read up on North Carolina, I have a column dedicated entirely to the Heels’ issues. Here, we have to start with No. 24 Purdue‘s thorough and exact 75-56 domination of No. 8 Duke in Sunday’s Legacy title game. 

Purdue is a top-five team with the POY frontrunner

Purdue lost top-five pick Jaden Ivey plus one of the better bigs in college hoops in Trevion Williams from last season’s team … and might be better? Probably is better? That’s incredible.

Only Matt Painter, man. 

Heck, if you’re the type of hoops fan who wants to proclaim Purdue is the best team and Zach Edey is the best player through the first three weeks of the season, I can’t fault ya. The Boilermakers, who were unranked to start November, have blown away expectations and rearranged our understanding of the top of the Big Ten. Remember how there were questions back in October about which team in the Big Ten should be regarded as the favorite? Indiana, Illinois and Michigan got consideration. Purdue was not in that discussion. Good, yes, but top-10 good?

Nobody had that. 

Now there’s no debate. Right now, it’s not close: In performance and in résumé, Purdue is the Big Ten’s best. Maybe it’s the best team in the country. Consider: The Boliermakers won 80-68 vs. West Virginia, 84-66 vs. No. 6 Gonzaga and 75-56 vs. No. 8 Duke. A three-game romping over four days here in PDX with an average win margin of 16.3 points. 

If Edey, the 7-foot-4 powerhouse, isn’t yet clearly the best player in college hoops — KenPom.com says he is — he’s obviously the most unstoppable. Hard to see that changing moving forward. Through six games Edey’s had five double-doubles and is averaging 21.7 points and 12.0 rebounds.

“Coach Painter trusts me to play through my mistakes,” Edey said. “If we’re highly touted after this, it doesn’t really matter.”

Good thing his stats aren’t as humble as he is; Edey’s demeanor is that of a satisfied role player. That’s what he was for the first two years of his college career. Now he’s the centerpiece on a team that Painter told CBS Sports is as accomplished and together as any group he’s had at Purdue at this point in the year. Duke gets the young-team reputation, and that’s fair, but Purdue is younger. 

It didn’t look young at all in the Rose City. Not against Duke, not in any game. Consider that the Boilers were able to basically bleed the clock out in the final three minutes. Duke’s two key bigs, Dercek Lively and Kyle Filipowski, had both fouled out with 2:35 to go. Here’s what’s also outrageous: Purdue didn’t allow a point in the final seven minutes. Completely cut off Duke’s water.

“Promise normally comes with guys that have done it before,” Painter told me. “Not to say that I didn’t think we could come here and win some games. But early in the season, it’s hard. I think it’s hard for everybody to kind of piece it together. I think we have guy that have good basketball IQs and I think that really helps. And we have some unselfishness.”

Painter later told me he’s got “human beings” across his locker room. Every one of them. Meaning: well-balanced, willing to be coached, wanting to learn. It’s a group poised for success. The freshman guard duo of Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith is the backcourt for the future for this team. They’re already so good and still have so much more to grow. 

“For us to win against Marquette, West Virginia, Gonzaga and now Duke right in a row, you know, we have a lot of young guys,” said Painter, “but we also have some guys that are competitive and they do a good job of playing together. I think that’s I think that the competitiveness and the unselfishness really separated us at times.”

Separated the entire time at PK85. Purdue was my biggest winner of the event. 

Duke isn’t in Purdue’s league right now

One team was ranked No. 8 and the other No. 24, but those identifiers were inaccurate. Purdue will rightfully jump Duke in Monday’s poll refresh. Different teams playing different games and trying to achieve different objectives at the moment. Blue Devils first-year coach Jon Scheyer has a lot to figure out and not a lot of time to do it. Duke isn’t at full speed and will probably need the remainder of its nonconference slate to gather its identity.

Next up is a home game Wednesday vs. Ohio State, with No. 25 Iowa in the Jimmy V Classic not so far away on Dec. 6. 

I’m not concerned about two-loss Duke right now. It’s not at 100%. Dereck Lively and Dariq Whitehead weren’t healthy throughout the preseason, with Whitehead requiring foot surgery. Lively fouled out vs. Purdue but played a spirited game. They need a few more weeks to get into consistent game conditioning. 

“I think we did well overall,” Scheyer said about going 2-1 in Portland. “There’s just a level that we want to play, and we have to learn how to win these kinds of games. It’s the little plays you didn’t have to make in high school. The rebounds and loose balls, being disciplined on defense, all those kinds of things. And I think we learned a lot from losing the way we did.”

Scheyer said Purdue’s as good as anyone in the country right now. Understandable to believe that after getting dropped by 19 in a game that wasn’t competitive for much of the second half. 

“They’re ridiculously good and Edey is a problem,” Scheyer told me. “And then trying to scout one day for a young team. It’s a handful.” 

How much more time does Duke need to find itself? Consider that the entire roster has had one full practice with everyone available. They don’t have chemistry yet. It can’t only be Jeremy Roach and/or Kyle Filipowski guiding you to every win. Against Purdue, those two accounted for 28 points on 10-of-24 shooting, and Roach was hobbled with a bum ankle. 

“We have a lot a lot of room to grow, I don’t want this to be a whole year thing where I’m saying in March ‘we have room to grow,'” Scheyer said. “These next couple of months are huge for us to get to know each other.”

“The thing for us is, we can’t expect that — we’re not experimenting,” Scheyer added. “We have to play Ohio State on Wednesday. We have to play Saturday, our first ACC game against BC. Next Tuesday, we play Iowa in Madison Square Garden. We’ve never had a stretch like this, it’s incredible.” 

Right into the fire for the young Scheyer. Give it time. Going 2-1 here is progress, even with the setbacks. 

Villanova‘s trip was a disaster for the résumé

First-year Villanova coach Kyle Neptune is nowhere near in the same situation as Scheyer and Duke. The shorthanded Wildcats went 0-3 in the PKI, losing Sunday 74-67 to an underwhelming sub-.500 Oregon team with six scholarship players available. A major reason for Villanova’s Portland pratfall: abundant-yet-anemic 3-point shooting. The Wildcats took 108 (yes, ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT) 3-pointers in three games and made 32 of them. That’s a 29.6% success rate, which is well short of where a team needs to be if it’s going to deploy an unleash-the-cannons approach.

It’s reasonable for Villanova fans to start panicking. A team without Jay Wright running the show was given a benefit of the doubt in the preseason; Villanova was ranked 16th in the AP Top 25. That was a missed evaluation by the voters. Villanova doesn’t register as top-50 quality right now. At 2-5, the program’s mired in its worst start since 1991.

Villanova’s next game? VU welcomes in 7-1 Oklahoma on Saturday. It’s the Wildcats’ last nonconference opportunity against a quality opponent, and winning that game will be mandatory to keeping alive any slim at-large chances Villanova hopes to have months from now. A loss against Oklahoma would mean Villanova would have to win the Big East Tournament in order to get a bid come March. There’s no chance a team that starts 2-6 could rally to win enough regular-season games and become an at-large candidate. 

Phil Knight Invitational bracket