Purdue Roundball Roundup: Brandon Newman's scoring edge, offensive rebounding and much more

Purdue’s Brandon Newman is off to a strong start to this season as a scorer, the Boilermakers are rolling on the offensive glass, defensive progress and more. All this and much more in our first Purdue Roundball Roundup of the season.

BRANDON NEWMAN HAS THAT LOOK IN HIS EYE

It’s too early in the season for anything to really be meaningful, but as Purdue hopes to see a consistent and influential perimeter scorer to emerge around a high-end frontcourt, Boilermaker junior Brandon Newman‘s assertiveness as a scorer has stood out, even if it’s not necessarily out of character for him.

Newman’s averaged 10-and-a-half points through two games, in an average of 21 minutes coming off the bench, where his aggressive mentality offensively might be especially valuable.

“We lost a lot from last year, a draft pick and a couple other pros,” Newman said. “They were vital parts of last year’s team and I knew coming in there were lots of points and lots of really good players leaving, so there’d be lots of opportunity.

“From that point on, I just worked on my game and made sure I was ready for this season.”

One area: Newman thus far has had some success taking one dribble off closeouts and knocking down long two-point pull-ups. One of those he missed — at the end of the first half against Austin Peay — was tipped in. Off turnovers, Newman’s bee-lined to the rim for buckets or fouls.

Purdue has a bunch of players on offense who are eager to pass and make offense flow. For a scoring-minded player like Newman, that can set him up for success.

“Being someone who looks to score, who looks to be aggressive, that’s so much fun to play with,” Newman said. “That just makes the game so much easier for me and my teammates, having unselfish guys who want to move the basketball. That’s going to put so much pressure on our opponents, because all of us, 1 through 15, we don’t have any egos or selfish guys.”

IS PURDUE’S DEFENSE AHEAD OF ITS OFFENSE?

So far — and the sample size is too small to matter — the answer is yes.

Purdue has fielded some incredibly efficient offenses in recent season, but through two games, this team’s development stage has yielded some very mediocre analytics.

According to Synergy Sports, Purdue averages just .895 points per possession. It’s shooting less than 43 percent from the floor and less than 27 percent from three, thanks to that 0-of-16 start vs. Austin Peay.

Meanwhile, defensively, Purdue’s numbers sparkle, though again, it’s too early to matter.

The Boilermakers have allowed only 97 points through two games, a 90th-percentile clip of .67 points per possession. The two overmatched opponents Purdue has faced have shot just 33 percent and gone 7-of-36 from three-point range.

“You’re going to have some breakdowns, but right now, I’d have thought our defense would be behind our offense,” Painter said after the win over Austin Peay. “And it really is, but our defense has been pretty good here the past couple days. … Our guys have been on it the past couple games.”

ZACH EDEY HAS BIG GOALS DEFENSIVELY

For as much as Purdue is relying on Zach Edey at the offensive end, the same can be said of the defensive end, where he’s the Boilermakers’ anchor as rim protection stands as one of their prime benchmarks toward defensive improvement.

That said, the opener against Milwaukee was the very best of Edey as a defender.

“One of his goals has been to make the (Big Ten) all-defensive team,” assistant coach Brandon Brantley said. “That was a pretty good start.

“He was in a stance, he was active, he knew what was going on. It was the best job we’ve ever seen him do as far as being a rim protector.”

For being as big as he has, Edey has always been more of a presence around the rim then he’s been a shot-blocker. But against Milwaukee, he blocked a bunch of shots, changed a bunch of others, forced a few turnovers simply by announcing his presence, so to speak, and got just about every defensive rebound that came within his airspace,

“Something I’ve been working on all off-season was focusing on ball-screen defense on rim protection,” Edey said. “That was some of the feedback I’ve gotten, that I could make major improvement in those areas,” Edey said. “I’ve been working on a lot of ball screen coverages and emergency switches … when a guard is really beat, switching on to him and being able to guard him at the end of a shot clock, something like that. Then, protecting the rim, having better instincts and awareness at that end.”

THE OFFENSIVE GLASS

Through two games, Purdue has grabbed an offensive rebound on 45 percent of its opportunities.

Now, that number will obviously even out as the season wears on, but for the time being it does raise the question of whether any shot, within reason, Purdue takes when its frontcourt has offensive rebounding position is a bad shot.

“It’s vital,” forward Mason Gillis said. “Our two biggest things are rebounding and not turning the ball over, taking care of the ball. Whenever we get more possession than the other team, we get more shots, more opportunities to score, and whoever scores more is going to win the game.

“Coach preaches taking care of the ball and rebounding. That’s what we’ve got to do.”

One of Matt Painter’s big emphases for building teams is the concept of “stealing points,” whether that be via forcing turnovers, scoring off the bonus off common fouls or second-chance opportunities.

It’s too early for any statistic matter, but also no reason to believe that offensive rebounding won’t be a significant edge for Purdue this season, with a frontcourt built around Zach Edey’s physical dominance — and atypical agility as a rebounder — and the relentlessness of Mason Gillis, Caleb Furst and seemingly Trey Kaufman-Renn, as well.

“It’s been that way ever since I’ve been here,” Gillis said, “and it’ll be that way until Coach Painter changes his ways, and I don’t see him changing his ways. This is how basketball’s supposed to be played. It makes sense.”

MISC

• This may not be an entirely new drill for Purdue and its post players, but for Zach Edey, his passing has been honed in part by drills that have managers sitting in folding chairs outside the arc. That way, Edey must be wary of not throwing the ball too high, crafting a downward arc to his passes, as 7-4 players need for obvious reasons.

“It really helps you prevent over-throwing those balls,” Edey said. “That’s probably the worst thing you can do, overthrowing it. If you throw it low, at least they can field it like a ground ball. If you throw it too high, there’s nothing they can do.”

• Purdue cracked the top 25 in the coaches poll on Monday, checking in at 24th. The Boilermakers would be No. 27 in the AP poll on the vote count.