WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue junior Matt Haarms was named to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar watch list, given to the nation’s top center, the organization announced today.
Williams is one of 20 players named and one of three Big Ten players on the list (Iowa’s Luka Garza, Michigan’s Jon Teske).
Haarms, a 7-foot, 3-inch center from Amsterdam, appeared in all 36 games with 24 starts a year ago. He played his best late in the season, averaging 11.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.7 blocks and 1.1 assists in the final 15 games of the season. He became the second player in Big Ten history, and first since 2007 (Ohio State’s Greg Oden), to lead the league in field goal percentage and blocked shots in the same season.
For the season, he averaged 9.4 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game, while shooting 63.2 percent from the field, the seventh-best mark in school history.
He enters the 2019-20 campaign with 153 career blocks, good for seventh on the Purdue list and sixth among all active players despite being just a junior.
Haarms and the Boilermakers open the regular season Nov. 6, when Green Bay visits Mackey Arena. Single-game tickets and mini-plan packages are available by calling the Purdue Athletics Ticket Office at 800.49SPORT or online at PurdueSports.com.