Top-seeded Purdue pounds Utah State, advances to Sweet 16: "They can be special"
INDIANAPOLIS – Utah State decided to raise its physical intensity and started literally attacking Purdue throughout the first 10 minutes Sunday afternoon.
No actual punches were thrown, but the Aggies were trying to intimidate the top-seeded Boilermakers by climbing on their backs, getting in their face and the occasional shove that the officials ignored.
That was fine.
But all this did was push coach Matt Painter’s team to another gear. And it was quite the gear as Purdue sprinted into the locker room after an impressive run, dominated the second half and is now headed to the Sweet 16 in Detroit.
Outscoring Utah State 26-9 – including 16 straight points – during the final 8:11 before halftime, the Boilermakers maintained control after halftime and posted an impressive 106-67 victory at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Purdue, which notched its program-record 31st win of the season, will face fifth-seeded Gonzaga on Friday night. No. 2 seed Tennessee and third-seeded Creighton play in the other Midwest Regional matchup.
Second-round matchups in the NCAA tournament normally don’t finish with a 39-point margin.
“I think there’s elite teams and there’s special teams, and they can be special,” Utah State coach Danny Sprinkle said. “When you have a player like Zach Edey, he’s special. There hasn’t been many guys like that in college basketball history. That’s why I think they can just take it to another level.”
The Boilermakers withstood Utah State’s initial flurry of offense thanks to Trey Kaufman-Renn’s early burst of eight points in the first five minutes and once Zach Edey was established inside, the Aggies were helpless to defend.
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Ian Martinez scored 11 points in three minutes and Utah State appeared ready to match Purdue basket-for-basket, but it didn’t last. Why? The Boilermakers ramped up their defense and overwhelmed the Aggies the rest of the way.
“I don’t know if we took their physicality personally; that’s just how we want to play,” senior Mason Gillis said. “We’re a physical team. It kind of unfolds that way when another team wants to be physical with us. We’re already physical and we can amp it up a little bit more.”
Purdue started challenging more shots, sparking the transition game as the pro-Boilermaker crowd savored every minute heading into halftime with a 49-33 halftime lead.
The deciding run to end the first half started with a Camden Heide dunk following a missed 3-pointer by Gillis. The snowball ride was just starting, as Utah State missed 12 straight shots, Fletcher Loyer started hitting, and Kaufman-Renn and Edey dominated inside.
Edey finished with 23 points and 14 rebounds, but Kaufman-Renn’s contribution was significant. The sophomore totaled 18 points and eight rebounds, and his physical play wore down the Aggies.
Loyer’s 15 points is a positive sign heading to the Sweet 16 and Heide added 10 points, leading a strong performance from the bench that included production from Myles Colvin.
Purdue’s 106 points are the most by the program in an NCAA tournament game.
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DEFENSIVE MENACE
Lance Jones wasn’t happy with his individual defensive performance against Grambling State.
After a shaky start, the overall performance was enough to carry the Boilermakers past the Tigers in the first round. After the Aggies’ quick start Sunday, Purdue’s defense took over and suffocated their offense.
And Jones led the way.
He called Utah State guard Darius Brown III the “head of the snake” and needed to limit the senior’s chances of keeping the offense going. Brown finished with 12 points but had only two in the first half and his two 3-pointers after halftime didn’t matter.
Jones had a talk with assistant coach Brandon Brantley on Sunday morning.
“I think, personally, it was really good,” said Jones, who had nine points and four assists. “(Brown) gets them all going and runs their offense. He has a lot of college games under his belt. I wanted to be aggressive and jam the ball as best as I could.”
Mission accomplished.
The Aggies started 9 of 18 from the field, but once the Boilermakers, led by Jones, increased their defensive pressure and intensity, scoring became extremely difficult.
“I wanted to be a defensive menace and that would lead to my offense,” he said.
Utah State shot only 30.4% in the final 28 minutes. This is how much the Aggies struggled – they hit 12 field goals in the first half but committed 13 fouls.
Jones wasn’t the only one to raise their level defensively.
“We talked about picking up our pressure, picking up our defense, and our awareness of what’s going on,” Gillis said. “Everybody was locked into our scout, locked into our film, and I told Lance he had to pick it up a little bit on defense because we follow him. He pushes himself, and that pushes us.”
“MAN ON A MISSION”
Coupled with his second-half performance in the first round, Trey Kaufman-Renn is performing well in big moments.
He had 11 points and seven rebounds against Grambling State but surpassed those totals Sunday. He outscored Utah State 8-6 as the game arrived at the first media timeout and never really let up.
“You could tell he was focused and he was a man on a mission,” Gillis said. “He really wanted to set the tone with offensive rebounds and not letting (Grant) Osobor get comfortable. I thought he did great.”
The combination of Kaufman-Renn and Edey was lethal against the Aggies, who are now 0-12 against ranked teams in the NCAA tournament.
“I think there was a lid on the basket at the start of the game for some of us,” Jones said. “Trey helped us. Trey got us going. He was on the glass hard and had a couple of and-1s to start the game.”
Kaufman-Renn was able to establish himself with the early production, not only scoring but hitting the boards hard. Purdue outrebounded the Aggies 49-26 and collected 18 second-chance points after 13 offensive rebounds, including three by Kaufman-Renn.
“That’s what we need from him,” Painter said. “Even when things don’t go his way, he’s just got to stay with it and keep battling because when you have someone like Zach, he gets that kind of attention, and Braden (Smith) gets that kind of attention.
“If you stick a couple of shooters in there, you’re going to get some open looks, and then Trey can get his post-ups, or Trey can get the ball off the glass.”
HEIDE’S SPARK
Purdue had three special-moment plays during Friday’s win over Grambling State that provided the jumpstart to the 28-point victory.
The one play Sunday was delivered by Heide after Gillis missed a 3-point attempt from the corner. Heide was standing outside the 3-point line when Gillis released his shot, and the redshirt freshman came flying in from the perimeter.
It brought a majority of the sellout crowd to its feet and was the foundation for the closing kick going into halftime and the second half.
“A lot of it is just reading where the ball is going and the flight of the ball and where it’s going kick it out,” Heide said. “Our coaches emphasis so much of crashing the middle of the floor. I don’t always do that sometimes, and they get on me for it because I think I know where the ball is going every time, but obviously, I don’t.
“Going to the middle and reading the trajectory of the ball and hitting someone and getting position but not only hitting someone to hit them but coach Painter always emphasizes hit someone to get the ball.”
Heide was part of a bench that produced 36 points and 15 rebounds and made 13 of 21 field goals. Painter removed Edey with about 12 minutes to play and brought the other starers off the floor throughout the next few minutes.
“We have 17 guys who can play great basketball,” Heide said. “That helps a lot. We have a lot of depth on our team. It was cool to see everyone down the line go in. We have the best fans in the country, and they love to see them too.”
