Roundball Roundup—Purdue’s defensive challenges

Purdue Roundball Roundup is a Boilermaker basketball-focused information and analysis clearinghouse/ thinkpiece posted periodically throughout the season, typically during breaks in the schedule.

DEFENSIVE COMMUNICATION

For years now, Purdue has begun seasons discussing the importance of defensive communication as a key to its success, citing, though, misalignment between personality and competitive (i.e. on-court) personality.

When Purdue has been good defensively — and it has been really good at times this season — its synergy on defense has been almost tangible.

During this swoon, however, there hasn’t been near the same cohesiveness.

Communication is critical, especially for a switching, help-oriented defesive scheme team that has to work to cover up vulnerabilities.

Here’s a quick clip from UCLA. Purdue has been putting its center on the in-bounder all season and opponents are now consistently working to hold on to that switch and keep a big man iso’d on a guard.

As things unfold here, a golden opportunity presents itself here for CJ Cox to move back onto Donovan Dent and for Oscar Cluff to get back with Tyler Bilodeau, but the opportunity is missed, Cluff remains in the mismatch and Dent scores off the bounce.

This is probably the most egregious breakdown of the season to date, and it starts merely with Indiana’s point guard passing off to its 4 man while bringing the ball up. Now, Jack Benter is caught between his elbow-help responsibilities and sticking the guy he was switched onto at half speed in the open floor, and CJ Cox is stuck to Lamar Wilkerson. Doesn’t seem to be a lot of traffic being directed here.

The number of cross-ups lately has been really troubling.

There’s something really wrong here, as Gicarri Harris is the back-side defender, but he’s positioning himself to help at the elbow as the ball gets whipped from the opposite side. The up cut in front of him doesn’t help his ability to close out, but clearly there was an issue here otherwise.

This is the opposite of the sort of team defense Purdue was playing just a few weeks ago/.

Someone has to be rotating to the rim here.

Here, Cox and Kaufman-Renn look sideways on who’s jumping out to take away the J. Purdue almost always hedges at the 4 here, but Kaufman-Renn is back on his heels

Another cross-up leading to a three.

Purdue was so attentive on defense just a few weeks ago.

Not only does Braden Smith lose his guy here, but his guy is the one you can’t lose.

And then just effort.

Purdue was giving great effort on D a few weeks ago and started the Indiana game just fine.

But stuff like this looks really bad. First off, Harris has to get this loose ball. Then the flag football and jogging that follow is just really hard to explain.

To the Illinois game …

Switching five ways didn’t work great for Purdue, though nothing did during a legendary performance for Keaton Wagler.

But here’s what happened, too, when Purdue didn’t switch with its 5 man.

Such are the challenges of playing bigger frontcourts, as Purdue has virtually all season — Kaufman-Renn missed the first two games, remember — and it’s really only now getting exploited.

The Boilermakers’ comeback at Indiana was driven by Kaufman-Renn playing center, creating a more versatile defensive grouping. Whether that changed things for the better for Purdue on defense or whether it was just coincidence is an eye-of-the-beholder thing, but it did unlock TKR a bit offensively.

Don’t be surprised to see Matt Painter perhaps proactively shift to such lineups to get a little more mobile 1 through 5. Rebounding then becomes a concern, but Purdue’s not enjoying any advantages on the glass lately as is.

But even if Purdue tries new personnel groupings, that doesn’t instantaneously make Purdue more connected, cohesive and communicative.

That’s where the biggest problems lie at the moment.

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