So I took a closer look at the Purdue loss to Illinois. 37 points offensively might be the worst total since before the shot clock and 3 point line existed...
Yet the fact that Purdue lost the game wasn't a huge surprise... It's not like we were supposed to win.
We were an underdog per Vegas (by only a point). In the tier system we were projected to lose that game. According to Sagarin’s system we were projected to lose that game.
What was strange about the game was that we shot 25%. It wasn’t due to great defense by Illinois. It wasn’t due to players standing around instead of MOVE, MOVing as Painter always yells… It wasn’t due to getting bad looks. The ball just didn’t go through the hoop. We shot 34.9% from 2 point range, 17.6% from behind the arc, and 40% from the stripe.
If you look at our season stats, we make 46.7% of 2pt shots, 33.2% of 3pt shots, and 65.1% of free throws. If you multiply those percentages by our 43 attempted 2 point shots, 17 attempted 3 point shots, and 10 attempted free throws…
…you get 63.5 expected points. We gave up 63 points to Illinois.
So MERELY shooting at season averages, this is an even game. Just as Vegas and Sagarin would predict (both had us as about 1 point dogs on the road).