Collin Hartman is a different player than he was the last time he played Purdue.
Last season the junior forward was coming off a knee injury, and his mobility was limited. He was also playing as a big man in an undersized lineup against a Purdue team with more size than most teams in the country.
But Saturday, Purdue will be facing a version of Hartman that’s more explosive than he’s ever been, and is playing primarily on the perimeter. This has meant Hartman is actually making fewer 3-pointers and getting to the basket more often than last season.
“I think it’s his match-ups,” IU Coach Tom Crean said. “He’s rarely played where he’s been guarded by a five. Maybe somebody wasn’t coming out to guard him as tight last year.”
This season, players are coming out to guard him. In IU’s 80-64 win against Nebraska on Wednesday night, a player closed out against Hartman on the perimeter. He responded by showing off his new explosiveness.
After juggling the pass, he dribbled around his defender along the baseline. What happened next shocked more than a few fans inside Assembly Hall.
Hartman rose up off one foot and threw down a one-handed dunk.
“In practice I have seen him do a lot of dunks like that, and when he rose up, I’m thinking a finger roll was coming,” freshman forward Juwan Morgan said. “But then when he pulled on the rim, I was just like, did that just happen?”
After IU’s loss at Michigan State last weekend, Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo said he noticed a difference in how Hartman played.
He only scored 11 points in the game, nine coming off 3-pointers. But Izzo said he still couldn’t help but be impressed by how much Hartman did.
“I thought one guy who is really improving is Hartman,” Izzo said. “I think he’s improved a ton, and he’s a hard cover because he can shoot and he can put it on the floor.”
But as the number of things Hartman can do offensively has increased, so has the number of mistakes he can make. He’s getting by defenders and into the lane, but once he’s there, he tries to do too much sometimes, Crean said. He can be like junior forward Troy Williams in some ways.
“He’s got to quit starting the game off with the whirling dervish one-handed passes a little bit,” Crean said. “He and Troy are like carbon copies of each other a couple of times when we were starting the game. But letting the game come, being ready to shoot the ball, he can facilitate so many things for us.”
Crean has said he’s had to remind Hartman it’s OK to score. When he gets into the lane, or he’s open from three, he should shoot the ball instead of trying to make the extra pass sometimes. Essentially, Hartman should use his newfound versatility to attack opponents.
Senior guard Nick Zeisloft said he remembers when he transferred to IU at the start of last season. Looking back, he says he can see a number of ways Hartman has matured and improved as a player.
“It seemed like he was kind of just a shooter, and then he really kind of molded last year, where he had to guard bigger guys,” Zeisloft said. “His toughness developed. He’s a mobile four-man that can shoot the ball and play tough and play inside as well, make a lot of plays for his teammates.”
