GoldandBlack.com basketball expert Brian Neubert and host Derek Schultz look ahead to the Boilermakers’ second conference game and how they will rebound after the blowout loss to Iowa State. 

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Takeaways: Purdue’s stunning blowout loss to Iowa State

Excerpt from Brian’s post-game column..

No. 1 Purdue was bounced — harshly — from the ranks of the unbeaten Saturday afternoon, outscored by nearly 20 in the second half en route to an 81-58 home loss to ninth-ranked Iowa State

Our GoldandBlack.com post-game analysis from the loss …

PDF: Purdue-Iowa State statistics

https://youtube.com/watch?v=s_7CvmcI5Kw%3Ffeature%3Doembed

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ON WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO PURDUE

Deep breaths are always good business during moments primed for over-reaction and just two realities are inarguable.

1. This was absolutely as much about an excellent, excellent Iowa State team announcing its presence as much as it was about Purdue being the paper tiger so many seem to really want it to turn out to be.
2. How terrible this day was for the Boilermakers will only be truly known in hindsight. It’s the response that matters now. We’ll see what anger and, yes, embarrassment yield from here on out.

But in the moment this was a really ugly look from a team that should have been insulated from this sort of thing not only by its home floor but also its experience.

Something was really missing. The second half was surreal after, truth be told, Purdue should have been thrilled to death to only be down four at halftime after needing 11 points off turnovers to stay close to Iowa State in the first half.

Purdue was not itself mentally, it did not seem.

The three-point shooting problems were a big deal, but obscured by the bigger picture. Purdue was only 6-of-14 at the foul line, after coming in shooting 77 percent. That’s hard to explain.

Trey Kaufman-Renn was uncharacteristically overwhelmed by the crowds and contact he drew. Fletcher Loyer looked sped up at times, especially on a few early threes.

Then, Braden Smith, for whom the standard is towering. Purdue hadn’t seen anything like Iowa State’s pressure yet, but Iowa State also hadn’t seen anything like Braden Smith’s diagnostic capability yet, either.

To that end, Purdue needed Apex Braden Smith today, maybe not for 40 minutes, but for extended stretches and certainly the second.

Yes, making threes would have helped — not sure Purdue made a single shot from the left side of the floor when offense was moving that way — but what makes Smith one of the greatest guards who’s ever played the college game isn’t just the passing, the scoring, the competitiveness, etc. It’s his mind.

Smith is a supercomputer cognitively with a LeBron-like knack for figuring out whatever’s in front of him in an instant, thinking fast, then playing faster. Offensively, Purdue never figured it out against the Cyclones as Iowa State threw the kitchen sink at the head of the snake, as players like to call the point guard. Smith wound up with six turnovers, including at least one situationally harmful one when Purdue had some first-half momentum. And Purdue couldn’t crack 60 points.

But the mental part of this was all-encompassing. Purdue has been good enough defensively this season, and seemed pretty on top of things from assignment, detail and effort perspectives. What happened in the second half couldn’t have been tied to anything other than frustration/mental hurdles, i.e. everything a team this good and this experienced isn’t supposed to be vulnerable to, especially at home.

This win said a lot about Iowa State, but Purdue needs to hope it didn’t say too much about it.

There was nothing circumstantial about this. This wasn’t a schedule land mine, the officiating was fine, or at least as fine as college basketball officiating can be, and so on.

Iowa State was awesome today, and Purdue, inexplicably, just didn’t have it.