Takeaways—Purdue’s win over Michigan

CHICAGO — Peaking at the right time, Purdue dominated the second half Sunday against mighty Michigan to win the second Big Ten Tournament title of its seniors’ careers with the Boilermakers, giving them distinct momentum heading into the most important games of the season in the NCAA Tournament.

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

PDF: Purdue-Michigan statistics

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ON SENIORS MEETING THE MOMENT

This was the best basketball of Purdue’s season, and the elements that betrayed the Boilermakers at times during an up-and-down regular season were both solved and sustained over the course of four games in four days. That is a direct reflection of senior leadership.

When you are a team as senior-influenced as Purdue is, the credit for a change in performance lies with the seniors, just as the blame does during failure.

But there is no overstating the importance of Braden Smith, Trey Kaufman-Renn, Fletcher Loyer and Oscar Cluff — the new guy among the four — really meeting the moment when their team needed them most. Purdue transformed itself defensively, took care of the basketball and looked more connected as a team than probably at any other point this season, and again that reflects directly on the seniors and just how much they stepped up in Chicago.

Braden Smith’s offensive command this weekend was simply exceptional, and keep in mind he did it against two of the better defensive teams in the Big Ten, including perhaps the best defensive team in the country in Michigan. Smith had the game against the Wolverines on a string.

His 11 assists were one thing, but his zero turnovers were absolutely critical. Purdue turned the ball over only twice against the No. 1–ranked defense in college basketball, something that directly correlated with the outcome of the game.

Purdue won this game in a lot of different ways, not the least of which was Braden Smith’s uncanny ability to figure things out on the fly. Purdue needed to turn Michigan’s size against it by making its big guys defend in uncomfortable positions, and Smith getting into his pick-and-roll game with Trey Kaufman-Renn rolling to the rim was really the impetus behind Purdue pulling away for good.

Kaufman-Renn was tremendous. This was a game he took very personally because he had a bad taste in his mouth for Michigan after last year’s games against Vladislav Goldin and Danny Wolf, and he enacted some measure of revenge in the Big Ten Tournament, taking it right at Michigan’s big guys over and over again once Purdue moved him to center and finishing with a game-high 20 points.

Kaufman-Renn is just one of several Boilermakers playing their best basketball of the season at the perfect time. To end a season in which his rebounding and passing have really transformed his game, Kaufman-Renn is back in dominant scoring mode.

Fletcher Loyer has done everything right lately. He is scoring, he is facilitating — doing a great job getting the ball inside, especially — and he is playing really physical, really hard basketball. He has also been very disruptive defensively.

And then, in a game featuring the best frontcourt in college basketball, the best big man on the floor was Oscar Cluff, and the best big man in the Big Ten Tournament as a whole was Cluff as well.

Smith won Most Outstanding Player at the United Center, but he just as easily could have shared that honor, at the very least, with Cluff.

Cluff’s energy and physicality were really impactful intangibles for Purdue all weekend, on top of his productivity as an opportunistic scorer and dominant rebounder.

What a great example those seniors set at the Big Ten Tournament for the players coming up in the program behind them.

It might be a little mysterious why this wasn’t the norm all season long, but better late than never. Purdue is peaking at the right time because of its senior class.

FRONTCOURT FOCUS

Purdue won the Big Ten Tournament for a lot of reasons, but the biggest reason — figuratively and literally — was its frontcourt.

When Purdue added size in the spring, it had to figure that it was going to come with a real advantage in the rebounding column and some legitimate rim protection that would help the Boilermakers defensively. It hasn’t always worked out that way this season, but it is working in a big way right now. Things are actualizing.

Again, Oscar Cluff was the best big man at the Big Ten Tournament in a league full of great ones, and Trey Kaufman-Renn looked like an All-American.

And while he is not a big man, you have to include Jack Benter in this conversation as well. The grit, effort and tenacity he showed in Chicago should have earned him some sort of medal, especially considering he is playing hurt with a bad wrist. Him making those four free throws to help seal the Michigan win might go down as a seminal moment of his career.

When you recruit offensively skilled players like Loyer and Benter, you don’t always figure you’re going to get real toughness and grit from them. But that’s exactly what Purdue got at the United Center all weekend from both players.

A STATEMENT MADE

Whether the players feel this way or not, who knows? But Purdue earned a measure of redemption for an unfulfilling regular season, given the expectations, and a measure of validation as a really formidable team heading into the NCAA Tournament — a possibility that, a week ago, might have been written off.

It was always the more likely scenario that Purdue would make a run in the postseason rather than flame out immediately, as many were sure to predict. These guys have won a lot of games. They are excellent basketball players, and that has been lying just beneath the surface for weeks now, even when they have struggled.

Did these games this weekend establish Purdue as the favorite to win the national championship? No, they did not. But the games in Chicago did validate the Boilermakers as something much more than a paper tiger.

This weekend in Chicago was a shot across the bow to the college basketball world — especially the win over Michigan — that you write Purdue off at your own risk right now. There is a reason these guys were Preseason No. 1.

FIGURING THINGS OUT

One of the many stories of this game was Purdue’s malleability in the face of circumstances and matchups.

When Michigan was big, Purdue exploited it in the pick-and-roll. When Michigan was small, Purdue exploited it in the post with Kaufman-Renn, who took it to Morez Johnson, not just embracing the physicality, but reveling in it.

Credit Smith for figuring things out like the supercomputer that he is. Purdue destroyed Aday Mara on defense by making him guard in space, and made those freakshow forwards have to guard guards away from the basket. If any team in America should know how to attack size, it should be the Boilermakers, because it’s what people have been trying to do to them for a decade now.

Smith attacked big men in a way he didn’t when these teams first met. He and Kaufman-Renn were killers on Sunday. Purdue’s matchup-hunting chased Michigan out of its switching, which then opened up the pick-and-roll for Smith and Kaufman-Renn, which is how the Boilermakers really separated.

But Purdue’s personnel machinations mattered a lot, too.

Matt Painter handled his front line’s foul drama perfectly, but that was made possible by Benter giving them 14 first-half minutes.

DEFENSIVE SURGE

Purdue has been all over the map defensively this season, and there’s no real reason for it other than concentration, attention to detail and energy.

It was never the Xs and the Os but rather the Jimmies and the Joes, as they say.

Purdue has proof of concept now that when it communicates, when it is attentive to detail, and when it plays with energy, effort and connectedness, anything is possible.

It sure helps when you only turn the ball over twice against one of the pre-eminent defenses in all of college basketball.