LAFAYETTE WEST — Purdue basketball The worst offensive performance of the season, thanks to Iowa State’s defensive clinic, also infected the other end of the court.
The most damning statement after Defeat of the Boilermakers 81-58 was not one of the characteristics of its magnitude. Matte Painter dropped several folkloric descriptions of his team’s defeat, referring to “intestinal fortitude”, an “assortment” of defensive lapses and a team being taken “to the stake”.
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He also made it clear that he doesn’t believe his team can pull off a win against a team as good as the Cyclones. A year ago, this might have been an assessment of a team lacking necessary ingredients, such as advanced rebounding ability and rim protection on defense. Saturday was an assessment of his team’s mentality.
“You can’t play through your offense,” Painter said. “You have to find your energy in defense. You have to find your energy in rebounding, recovering 50-50 balls and making those plays.
“…Their determination and fight were better than ours.”
The shots weren’t falling in the first half either, when Purdue shot 2 of 10 from 3-point range. However, the early drought does not seem to have had the same psychological effect on the team’s defensive initiative.
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Brad Smith served as the tip of this spear with a few flights. The Boilermakers scored 11 of their first 14 points off turnovers, completely stealing Iowa State’s MO.
Purdue trailed only 35-31 at halftime because when home games turned nasty, it fell back on defense.
So why didn’t that happen in the second half as well? How did this become the most lopsided home loss for a No. 1 team in the history of the Associated Press Top 25 poll?
We’ll take a closer look at the stretch from the time Iowa State star Joshua Jefferson picked up a third foul — 30 seconds into the second half — until his return nearly eight minutes later. While the advantage should have passed to the Boilermakers, their opponent instead went on to win 24-12.
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Purdue lost its composure on defense and couldn’t get it back
The defensive contrast between the teams at the start of the second half was shocking at times.
Iowa State’s length and connectivity on the perimeter left Purdue’s guards dribbling for long periods, searching in vain for a triggering action. Trey Kaufman-Renn entered halftime with a 1-of-8 shooting line – and finished the game with the same line. Many of his touches came on the perimeter, where he gave up the ball but rarely got it back.
On the first three Chaudières possessions of this stretch, Fletcher Rent missed a deep 3, Kaufman-Renn threw the ball under the basket and Loyer was called for a trip. In some ways, these should have been the kind of turnovers Purdue could live with — dead ball results that allowed the defense to set up anyway.
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After the thrown post look, point guard Tamin Lipsey passed the ball to midcourt and headed down the lane. All of Purdue’s defenders rushed towards him, leaving Milan Momcilovic completely unguarded in the corner. It was the easiest 3-point shot of the Cyclones’ 11-of-23 performance.
After the trip, some confusion between Oscar Cluff And Omer Mayer allowed Killyan Touré a clean look for 3 more.
Other times, the Boilers seemed to suffer from a general lack of awareness against an opponent ready to capitalize. On the final play of that sequence, Dominick Nelson grabbed a defensive rebound in the lane, with only Kaufman-Renn behind him. He passed every other player on the court seamlessly for a coast-to-coast layup and a 61-43 lead.
“I thought we kind of gave up on some mental errors and some things that deviated from our rules and got away with it, and they made us pay for it,” Smith said.
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Milan Momcilovic ran well at the worst possible time for Purdue
All of the above has left the Boilermakers vulnerable to the worst possibilities on otherwise prosperous holdings.
Immediately after cutting the deficit to 10, Purdue forced Iowa State out of the shot clock at the other end. Momcilovic had to make a difficult mid-range reversal with two Boilers nearby to beat the buzzer…and did so.
Later in the spurt, he also hit a contested step-back jumper inside the arc.
The Wisconsin Mr. Basketball 2023 scored 20 or more points for the third straight game and fourth in its last five. To put his insane 71.5% completion percentage into perspective, the usually ultra-efficient Loyer is running at a career-best 60.6% this season.
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Those low-percentage baskets may have seemed like a headache in the moment. More precisely, they were gentle nudges on an already crumbling structure.
“I told our guys I’m not mad when Milan takes an 18-foot shot in the corner and makes it,” Painter said. “I’m not mad about it. But you can’t give him a 3 pace. You have to make it difficult. You can’t give him angles.”
What Saturday’s loss says about Purdue’s championship potential
A question looms over this season and whether his league form will continue in March. What is the best version of Purdue when it has the worst version of its shooting results?
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Missed shots make it more difficult to recover and set up a defense. That wasn’t really the problem since the Cyclones widened the gap. They simply led a confident, precise attack against a team that couldn’t recover when it started to stumble.
Iowa State finished with a 17-13 edge in points off turnovers. This is a category he expects to win in every game. A mere four-point deficit could have been considered before the game as a predictive factor in Purdue’s favor. The most damning part of this statistic is that the Boilers only generated two points 11:19 into the first half.
They attacked early on, until they weren’t anymore. A team considered one of the most experienced and proven in the country was upset on its home field.
We must continue to cite this statistic to provide context for Purdue’s stated goals. None of the last 15 national champions finished the season with a KenPom adjusted defensive efficiency above 94. Only two finished with a rating above 92.
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The KenPom methodology progressively filters data from the previous season, so some of last year’s performance remains in the Boilers’ 97.9 score. That’s a drop from last season’s 99.2, but it would still require them to be an outlier by Championship standards.
Painter knows his team’s offense enters every game with the ability to bury an opponent. He hasn’t seen enough of them to know that they can avoid being buried by an avalanche.
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This article was originally published on the Indianapolis Star: Purdue basketball championship shortcomings exposed against Iowa State
