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Purdue played Wednesday night without Zach Edey for the first time this season because the leading candidate for National Player of the Year is battling the flu. That’s not ideal. But the Boilermakers still recorded another easy victory and remained undefeated.Final score: Purdue 74, New Orleans 53.So the Boilermakers are now 12-0 with wins over Gonzaga, Duke, West Virginia and Marquette. They remain No. 1 in Thursday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings.”Obviously Zach’s not feeling well,” said Purdue coach Matt Painter. “Hopefully he gets some rest and gets better — and he can go on the 29th.”
That’s Dec. 29, when Purdue will close the nonconference portion of its schedule with a game against Florida A&M inside Mackey Arena, where the Boilermakers have won 19 consecutive contests against non-league opponents and sold out 48 consecutive games. After that projected victory, Purdue will restart its Big Ten schedule with games against Rutgers (home) and Ohio State (away) in the first week of January.Purdue was able to handle New Orleans with few issues thanks in part to a big performance from Trey Kaufman-Renn, a redshirt freshman who missed all of last season after suffering a knee injury in November 2021. The 6-foot-9 forward came off the bench, took 10 shots, made eight of them and finished with a career-high 24 points against the Privateers. He’s now averaging 6.8 points and 2.7 rebounds in 15.2 minutes per game as a quality rotation piece who provides depth in the frontcourt.
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