Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Valparaiso +19 -105 over Purdue

6:30 PM EST. Let's start with what Purdue actually is right now, because the ranking and the building are doing a lot of heavy lifting in this number. The Boilermakers won 30 games last season and cut down nets at the Big Ten Tournament, and then four starters walked out the door. Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer, Trey Kaufman-Renn and Oscar Cluff took roughly 53 points a game with them. What is left is a roster with exactly one returning starter, junior guard C.J. Cox, and he shot 4 of 11 in the opener. The market has bet this line up from 17.5 to 19.5 anyway, purely on faith in a program that has not won a game yet this season. Faith is not a stat. We will take the points and the team that already knows who it is.

The new faces in West Lafayette are talented, but November does not care about recruiting rankings. Caden Pierce is a former Ivy League Player of the Year from Princeton, and he also sat out all of last season, so he is shaking off a full year of rust in real time. Luke Ertel is a four star freshman. Omer Mayer is a sophomore being asked to run a Big Ten offense. Daniel Jacobsen did go for 22 points on 9 of 11 shooting against Gonzaga, and Purdue still lost, because one big night from the centre spot is not a rotation. Cox has to be the man now, Pierce has to find his legs, the freshmen have to grow up on the fly, and every one of those projects is being graded tonight against a team with no projects at all. Valpo kept everybody. That almost never happens anymore, and it is worth real points in the second week of November.

Because look at what Roger Powell Jr. brings into Mackey. JT Pettigrew was third team All MVC as a freshman and opened with 18 points. Rakim Chaney put up 10 points and 3 steals. Justus McNair was on the league's All Bench and Most Improved teams last season. And the matchup problem is 6 foot 11 Carter Hopoi, who stuffed the opener full with 8 points, 8 rebounds, 3 blocks and a team best plus 28, with 6 foot 9, 265 pound Kobe Walker behind him. The Beacons do not stand around launching jumpers and hoping. They drove it at Western Illinois 43 times worth of free throws on Monday, six different players scored at least 8, and freshman Rajan Roberts came off the bench for 13 in his first college game. That rim pressure is aimed straight at Purdue's one soft spot, because keeping Jacobsen out of foul trouble is the thing Purdue people keep talking about. A team that attacks the paint all night, with size to stand in front of the other team's one reliable weapon and a bench that scores, does not get blown out by 20. It makes the favourite work for every inch.

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