Cleaning up late-game situations priority for Purdue as NCAA tournament begins
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Although Purdue won the Big Ten regular season by three games, captured the conference tournament, and earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, concerns remain.
Some are bigger than others, but the ones at the forefront are protecting late-game leads and handling full-court pressure. The two are tied together since the inability to deal with the press has led to double-digit advantages shrinking in the final minutes.
The most recent examples came against Illinois and Penn State. There was also a brief meltdown against Rutgers in the Big Ten tournament but losing a 24-point lead to the Fighting Illini at Mackey Arena and watching a 17-point advantage evaporate to one against the Nittany Lions in the conference title game are worrisome.
And 16th-seed FDU, which faces the top-seeded Boilermakers in Friday’s first round at Nationwide Arena (6:50 p.m., TNT), is a pressing machine, in part because it’s the shortest team in Division I and it’s one of the few advantages it has in dealing with bigger and stronger opponents.
The Knights were also able to overwhelm some of their lesser conference opponents, but can they rattle the Boilermakers enough from the opening tip to make a difference? And will that press have the impact late if Friday is another close game?
“We play fast, we press,” FDU coach Tobin Anderson said. “I think we press more than any team in the country. And that’s our style, and we’re going to make the game fast. We have quick guards who want to play up-tempo, who want to play fast.
“We use it to our advantage. We’re harder to guard. We create a lot of mismatch problems and because we press and play fast, it helps us a little bit as far as overcoming the size.”
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This isn’t a new concern for coach Matt Painter, whose team has struggled against Iowa’s fullcourt pressure and traps the last several years. But the Boilermakers now must handle what’s coming at them from the beginning.
“It’s doing what we do, and obviously, we can clean some things up,” junior Ethan Morton said. “But I think sometimes, you don’t always factor in the other team’s desperation. I think that was more so the case with Penn State and Rutgers as well.”
Purdue did a lot of things right to build big leads, but whether it’s not staying aggressive or losing an edge because of substitutions, those leads are dwindling and reaching a critical level.
One mistake after that could be the difference between advancing in the NCAA tournament or going home.
“A lot of times what happens is you get up, and it’s just human nature to relax,” assistant coach Terry Johnson said. “And so then other teams, their sense of urgency picks up, and we’re like, ‘Oh, well, you got to pick it back up again.’ ”
“You want to look down the floor, you want to make sure you see your teammates, and one of the things is I think our guys held the ball too long and allowed the trap to get right to them instead of seeing an open teammate and passing it right away.”
For those who believe that the Boilermakers don’t work on dealing with fullcourt pressure are mistaken. It’s part of nearly every practice session, especially when pressing is what the upcoming opponent does every game.
“When you go in and play people that don’t press, and you have issues, that’s the main thing,” Painter said. “When you go and face somebody who’s going to press you the whole time, run and jump and zone press, you get a lot of prep work from that.”
Painter said the idea is to be “fundamentally sound”, but against Penn State, a player steps on the baseline and another throws a pass across his body trying to make a play in the quarterfinals against Rutgers.
Purdue did a good job overall with turnovers in the Big Ten tournament, but the timing of the mistakes in late-game situations became magnified.
“What’s bad is they’re on top of each other,” Painter said. “You have a game where you struggle with it, and you have another game we break the press two different times against Rutgers, but we have a guy that throws the ball against his body just coming up the court.”
As the Boilermakers build their leads, they’re trying to take time off the clock and shorten the game and reach the finish line with a victory. But it’s more about just handling the press.
The offense has dried up and missed free throws have added to those leads disappearing.
“You don’t want them to lose the aggressiveness either,” Johnson said. “It’s just awareness. We still want to attack, but also we want to work the clock, and one good thing about us we always have Zach down there. It’s a hard balance to keep them still playing but also not being careless.”
Zach Edey is an option as an outlet, Painter said, but the staff doesn’t want the 7-foot-4 junior to be put in a situation where he has to dribble to escape trouble based on how the defense might react.
“He can, but what people will do, they will go match at that time I don’t know if it’s good if Zach brings it up the court,” Painter said. “Now they would go and deny those guys, and if they deny and he can’t get it to one of them, you’re in trouble.”
