Takeaways IU loss—Poise connectedness an issue

BLOOMINGTON — Purdue’s season-altering slide continued Tuesday night, as the Boilermakers dropped their third straight, losing at rival Indiana 72-67.

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

PDF: Purdue-Indiana stats

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SOMETHING MISSING IN PURDUE

Things can turn quickly in college basketball, but the Purdue you are seeing right now is a far cry from the Purdue you saw just a few weeks ago.

It looks disconnected and inattentive and its effort levels and poise have really slipped. To the poise part of it, look at how these final minutes of games and halves are going. Poise should be a strength for veteran teams with Purdue’s collective experience. But it’s not been able to execute offensively in crunch time, nor has it been able to get pivotal stops on defense, breaking down at the worst times.

But Purdue also shouldn’t have been in a position to have to rally from as many as 14 down. Its effort in the first half wasn’t good enough and for the second straight season in this building, it got shook.

Is this just a natural ebb in a long season, as part of these guys’ long careers? Remains to be seen.

THE OTHER SIDE OF SIZE

Purdue fixed its prohibitive dearth of size from last season and reaped the benefits for much of this season, but now is struggling with the flip side of that coin.

Opposing offenses are smartly attacking Purdue’s bigs on the perimeter. This is not a new development at Purdue, which has been built around ultimate size for pretty much a decade.

The past two games, switching, hedging, pretty much whatever Purdue did with Oscar Cluff, it didn’t matter when it mattered most. That’s just the cost of doing business with bigger lineups, but the challenges have to be offset by advantages and the past few games, they’ve not been. Purdue has not had advantages in the rebounding column. The numbers may say otherwise from the IU game, but Indiana’s 10 second-chance points were a big deal.

Size doesn’t make much of a difference rebounding against teams that shoot threes by the dozen. That’s an effort matter and an area where Purdue wasn’t good enough Tuesday.

Likewise, Tuesday night was a reminder of what Trey Kaufman-Renn can do as a go-to scorer, but this was just his first 20-point game of the season after he averaged that a year ago. Scoring is not the Boilermakers’ most glaring issue, but it does remind us that playing the 4 has changed his role this season. He’s been better in some ways, but when Purdue needs somebody to take over a game other than Braden Smith, Kaufman-Renn isn’t positioned as well to do that anymore.

It was just four games ago that Purdue had to sweat out a win at USC because Cluff was in foul trouble. Fast forward to now and he’s not had the same impact during the losing streak as he did most of the season prior. And some of Daniel Jacobsen‘s room for growth has become more apparent than it was.

TKR did real damage at center to end this game and while he’s not exactly a gazelle, he is more switchable than the others. You wonder if maybe at least a part-time move back could be considered.

Last season, Purdue struggled to rebound with Kaufman-Renn at center and worried about him fouling.

Well, Purdue’s still struggling to rebound and he’s still fouling, so …

ON PURDUE AT ASSEMBLY HALL

Purdue’s seniors leave now, having lost three of four at IU, which becomes a lamentable piece of their legacies, like it or not, amidst otherwise great careers.

These rivalry games on the road are about poise. Purdue has had excellent teams the past four years while Indiana went through a rocky patch. This could have gone very differently, but Purdue clearly didn’t handle the environment well, lost its head at times and the results reflect it.

Emotions are poise. Purdue seems to get distracted at times by calls it disagrees with, yapping from opponents or fans, etc. Kaufman-Renn is a really competitive player, belying his thoughtful demeanor, but there are moments where it gets the best of him.