Paradise Jam Finals; Vols and Boilermakers

Written by Grubby | 23 November 2009

For teams that haven't met in over 25 years, tonight's matchup of #6 Purdue and #9 Tennessee has a certain feel of familiarity.  Here's a preview of some of the sub-plots to tonight's championship contest in the U.S. Virgin Islands Paradise Jam tournament.

Pearl vs. Purdue. In coaching legend Gene Keady's final season, Bruce Pearl took his then UW-Milwaukee team into West Lafayette and came out with a victory.  A fact which Pearl didn't shy away from mentioning yesterday in an interview, even side by side with the former coach of 25 years.

Big 10 Memories. Former player under Keady and current Boilermaker coach Matt Painter also has familiarity with Pearl.  Painter's playing days were spent dribbling against Pearl's mentor Dr. Tom Davis' teams at Iowa.  They ran a similar "controlled chaos" pressure defense system then as well.

Top 10 Icebreaker.  Today is the first game of the '09-'10 season between two top-10 teams.

If you can't duck it... Last night's close 4-point UT win over DePaul was interrupted for about 10 minutes when a piece of the goal came off.  It was repaired -- you guessed it -- with duct tape.  The players were allowed a second post-halftime warmup segment, and the game continued.

Tonight's contest tips off at 8:30pm Eastern on Fox College Sports TV.