Purdue Boilermakers

Fans at the Yum! Center were treated to their money’s worth on Thursday night. Not only was UVA-Oregon a slug fest in the late game, but in the early matchup Purdue and Tennessee played an overtime barn-burner. The Boilermakers advanced and are now ready to go toe-to-toe with Virginia for a trip to the Final Four. Matt Painter is known as one of the “good guy” coaches, got here without a roster of blue chip recruits, and is trying to erase a Final Four drought even longer than Virginia’s. In this ACC-B1G clash, who’s going to cut down the nets?

Game Details:

What ‘They’ Say

Depth Chart:

The ABC’s of Purdue:

A) It all starts with Carsen Edwards. He’s the best scoring PG in the country. KenPom has him ranked as the nation’s 3rd best player overall, ahead of even Zion. The 6’1″ ball-dominant guard scores from all over the floor to the tune of nearly 24 points a game, well balanced between 2’s and 3’s. As a floor general, he’s quiet but efficient, with 3 assists a game; his TO numbers are high (3.1 a game), but most of those come when he’s driving the lane, not when he’s trying to distribute. The knock on him is his efficiency, as he’s “only” a 35% 3-point shooter, good but not elite. He can be a little streaky, but when he’s on, Purdue is lethal. He’s averaging 32 ppg in the NCAAT, headlined by a 42 point outburst in a blowout win over Villanova where he nailed 9 of 16 3PAs. The volume shooter is one of the most ball-dominant players in the country; he takes 37% of Purdue’s shots, which is the 6th highest rate in the country and the highest of any player that made the NCAAT. When the junior struggles, however, such as when he scored only 11 points on 17 shots against Minnesota in the B1G tournament, Purdue tends to struggle with him.

B) This team loves the 3-ball. A large part of this is Carsen Edward’s 10 3PAs a game. But he’s not alone. The team as a whole takes 45% of their shots from deep, right outside the top 10% in the country and the highest rate in the B1G. And as a team they shoot it pretty well, 37% 3P%, and they ranked as the most efficient 3P-shooting team in their league. The other big name to know here is Ryan Cline, a 6’6″ wing who hit 42% on the year on an incredible 261 total attempts (Edwards and Cline ranked 1-2 in the B1G in total 3-point attempts). Cline started the NCAAT with a 1-11 night against ODU, but followed that up with a solid 4-8 night against Nova and went off for 7-10 from 3 in the Sweet 16, carrying the Boilermakers in the 2nd half. Other role players are low usage but efficient here, such as occasional-stretch-5 Haarms (38% on very limited attempts in B1G play), forward Wheeler (38%), and senior wing Eifert (48%). Virginia brings the nation’s 2nd best 3P% defense into this game (28% allowed on the season), so this game could turn on who’s strength gives.

C) They’ve based their defense on ball pressure. Purdue’s not a full court pressing team, per se, not like Oregon was. But they’ve been ball-pressure heavy in the half-court, picking up the opponents guards at the timeline and trying to harry them into lost balls and bad passes. The Boilermakers’s defense finished 2nd in the B1G in turnover rate (19.7%, 1 in 5 possessions) and 3rd in live-ball steal rate (10.5%, 1 in 10 possessions), so they were effective, especially since they have good rim protection waiting to clean up any mistakes (B1G’s second-best block rate led by the 7’3″ Haarms’ 2.0 blocks a game).

But you’ll notice I was using the past tense there. That’s because it seems, to some degree, that Painter has pulled the defense back in NCAAT play, opting for a slightly more conservative approach. Whereas Purdue averaged 12.5 TOs forced per game in regular season B1G play, that number has dropped to just 8 per game in the NCAAT. It’s hard to say what they’re really focusing on in NCAAT play defensively. ODU came into the postseason with a sub-200 offense, so shutting them down didn’t really require a complex game plan. Against Villanova, they packed the paint and baited the Cats into taking a ton of contested 3’s, betting they’d go cold, and that’s been the book on Villanova all year, a prototypical live/die-by-the-3 offense. Tennessee came into the Sweet 16 with the KenPom #2 offense and ran up 94 points in 45 minutes (82 in regulation), scoring both inside and out.

Ultimately, it comes down to Purdue’s defense being a sound one, a disciplined man-to-man that had success in the B1G. It’s not flashy, and doesn’t necessarily stand out due to length or athleticism like Oregon’s does, but has more often than not gotten the job done regardless.

Their Season To Date

Purdue is 26-9 on the season. They struggled in the non-conference, going just 7-4 and losing 3 games to ACC teams (Virginia Tech by 6 on a neutral floor, Florida State by 1 in Tallahassee, and Notre Dame by 8 on a neutral floor). But they turned their season around in conference play, going 16-4 during the league regular season. Against the league’s NCAAT teams, they went 1-1 vs Michigan State, 0-1 vs Michigan, 1-1 vs Maryland, 1-0 vs Wisconsin, and 1-2 vs Minnesota.

They lost their opening B1G-T game to Minnesota 75-73. In the NCAAT they started with a 61-48 win over ODU in Hartford, CT, won their pod with an 87-61 win over Villanova, and in the early game Thursday in Louisville beat Tennessee 99-95 in overtime.

Keys to getting the win:

1) Shut down the role players. And by role players, I mean everyone other than Edwards (no disrespect intended to some very good players who have helped carry Purdue this far). Carson’s gonna eat. He’s had only 6 games this season with less than 19 points. I’m hopeful that Clark and the rest of the Pack can do a fair job of affecting his efficiency, making it a hard-earned point total, but he’ll score regardless, that’s just a credit to how good a player Edwards is. The rest of the team, however, has the potential to make or break this game for Purdue. Ryan Cline went off for 27 points vs Tennessee and Haarms chipped in 5 of 7 from the paint. Before that Haarms went 8 of 11 against Nova. But ODU effectively limited everyone not named Edwards (35 combined points from players #2-9) and kept Purdue’s point total to a manageable 61 (ODU’s offense was why they lost that one).

It’s been a long while since UVA faced a team with as clear an offensive focal point as Purdue and Carsen. Credit the ACC for being so balanced. But go all the way back to the first half of the season, and we talked this way about Ky Bowman at BC and Ethan Happ at Wisconsin. In both instances, the Hoo defense was able to make life hell on the lower-usage players and force their star player into unsuccessfully trying to carry the team against the more balanced Hoos. Virginia must ensure that Cline and the rest of the supporting cast have a relatively quiet night so that it’s mostly just Edwards Virginia must outscore (which even then could be a tall order).

2) Put Hunter to work. Lots of hot takes after the Oregon win about Hunter’s quiet stat line. Forget about it. Oregon’s defense was uniquely suited to stifle a guy like him, with a dense, energetic, long and athletic system that put multiple bodies in his way every time he even thought about playing downhill. Purdue’s defense is not Oregon’s.

To be sure, it’s a good defense, positionally disciplined, well coached. But it’s not overly long or athletic. Tennessee rolled out two top-notch combo forwards in Admiral Schofield (6’6″ / 241 lb) and Grant Williams (6’7″ / 236 lb) who scored 42 combined points on just 31 shots, primarily in the paint. If Hunter plays up to his potential with sufficient aggression, he’s going to find his natural talents can be a lot for Purdue’s wings to handle.

Go back to Hunter’s first game in this building this year, 2/23 vs the Cardinals. Similarly-ranked defenses with similar talent and athleticism. Hunter put up 26 points primarily by getting into the lane, going 7-9 from 2 and drawing 6 additional FT attempts. I want to see that Dre show up in this one.

3) Win the glass. Purdue is often an inconsistent rebounding team. Yes they put a giant at the 5-spot who is one of the best rebounders in the B1G on both ends of the floor on his size and strength alone, and his backup center Trevion Williams has impressive rebounding percentages as well. But usually they’ve got smaller and/or less bouncy forwards at the 4-spot and teams with size can often overwhelm them at the 3 and 4.

Offensively Purdue (the B1G’s #2 in OR%) crashes the 3-5 pretty aggressively, sending Eifert and Eastern hard to the rim on a delay after a (usually) Edwards shot, betting that either it’ll be a long rebound off a missed 3 that goes over defenders’ heads, or that the defense has all helped on Carsen and it leaves them free of a box-out to go grab an O-board. Old Dominion was able to limit the Boilermakers to just 3 second chance opportunities, but Purdue subsequently averaged 10 O-Reb’s a game against Nova and Tennessee. Virginia’s forwards, and even guards, most dial in on box outs, especially if they’ve helped on a dribble-drive.

On the other end, Purdue was in the bottom half of their league in D-Rebounding rate, often due to their smaller play at the 4 and 3, compounded by their tendency to push perimeter defenders out to the arc. The Boilermakers are giving up about 10 offensive rebounds a game in NCAAT play. Virginia finished in the top half of the ACC in OR% thanks to the rotation of Salt, Diakite, Key, and Huff; while we’re going smaller at times so far in the NCAAT, the Hoos are still averaging nearly 10 O-Reb’s a game, and just as it was a major boost to our offense vs Oregon, it needs to be vs Purdue as well.

Predictions:

I want to say this up front… Purdue’s win over Tennessee on Thursday night rivals any win on UVA’s resume, just as good in my opinion as our win in Chapel Hill. That’s a confidence-building statement win and proves they belong in the Final Four conversation as much as anyone; the Vols at point this year were the nation’s #1 team for a reason.

Back in February I remember folks complaining about the unfairness of our Sat/Mon turnaround from Duke to UNC. Well folks, this game, this similar 48 hour turnaround is exactly why UVA got a gift from the ACC schedulers in that February sequence. Virginia has been in this spot before. Purdue is a great team, but Virginia has faced similarly great teams throughout the year, often on minimal preparation (we also went on the road to tourney-teams VT and Syracuse on a similar turnaround). The Hoos should be prepared.

And ultimately, I’m struggling to think of a team in the mold of this Purdue squad that’s beaten UVA’s best teams during the Peak Tony era, one with an effective supporting cast built around a transcendent star guard. Typically, the teams that beat peak-UVA teams feature size and athleticism. Has been the case for years. I’m talking a balanced attack of big strong wings and forwards who can just bully the Pack Line on one end and overwhelm our ball-handlers on the other. That’s FSU. That’s Duke. That’s UNC some years, and sometimes Louisville. That’s Syracuse. That was Michigan State. And that was Oregon.

Once again, credit to Purdue for their outstanding win on Thursday. But I’d be remiss to not point out that UT finished with the nation’s #42 defense per KenPom, and Villanova before them finished #81, so those weren’t quite a Bennett-level Pack Line they carved up. The B1G did feature some top defenses this year (Michigan #2, Wisconsin #5, MSU #10, and Maryland #22). These Boilermakers scored 57, 62, 59, 84 (OT), 73, and 56 and went 3-3 in those games. ODU’s #36 defense held them to 61. They can be slowed down.

Will they be this weekend? We’re about to find out. But my gut says to go with the Hoos to #PressOn.

Hoos Win 68-60