Upon Further Review: Auburn

After each Purdue basketball game this season, GoldandBlack.com will take a detailed look back at the contest to highlight some of its finer points.

Today, the Boilermakers’ 88-60 win Saturday over Auburn at the Indy Classic.

Stats: Purdue-Auburn

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ANOTHER BRADEN SMITH MASTERCLASS FOR PURDUE

First, during Purdue’s first possession, when the Boilermakers are just probing, here’s the look Braden Smith gets.

He responds by dribbling to his left to feel the defense out.

Thirty seconds later.

Auburn is keepIng this help defender at the elbow to account for both Oscar Cluff and the shooter in the corner being helped off. Smith is playing against that guy, not the two guys actually trap him.

That little backward Frogger dribble creates the space to throw the cross-court dart.

Later, Smith gets right back to it — with obnoxious ease — and Auburn’s Eliyah Freeman (6) is no longer a fan of the game plan, clearly.

People are wanting to clog the lane against Smith and he just destroys it. (In concept, this isn’t wildly different than what Purdue has been doing for a few years defensively.)

In the second half, not sure what this was. Obviously a breakdown on Auburn’s part.

Back to Smith: You can’t switch size onto him. He does this every time, where he blocks the switch back, drags the big man out while everyone else drops to the baseline and he just goes. This is a foul every time he does it. (The GTFOH traffic-directing to his teammates is funny, too, and has to have some sort of psy-ops effect on that defender.)

BEING PHYSICAL

Just going to use this sequence here to put a face on how Purdue out-physical’d Auburn and at times seemed to get between its ears.

Here’s Jack Benter fighting like hell against 6-foot-10, 240-pound Keyshawn Murphy, and for his efforts getting the old Jake The Snake DDT.

Auburn seemed to think it could bully Purdue. Here’s how that went after that first exchange with Benter.

Now, Murphy’s next two defensive possessions give the look of a guy with his tail between his legs.

Pretty brutal effort here.

Then he gets taken by Fletcher Loyer, who breaks out the Olajuwon after getting into the big fella’s chest.

Auburn thought it could push Purdue around. It went the other way.

Not trying to overstate this, but seeing Daniel Jacobsen get and hold position like this reminds of a guy Purdue had two years ago.

This play by Loyer was sort of a tone-setter, maybe.

GETTING TREY KAUFMAN-RENN INVOLVED

It was clearly going to be a priority for Purdue to ride Trey Kaufman-Renn in the second half. It opened with a very simple clearout.

Kaufman-Renn is rightfully viewed as a post scorer, but he is different from that prototype, because his touches come in so many different ways in so many different spots. The old inverted ball screen with Smith remains the gift that keeps on giving. Auburn gets bodies on everyone here, but this action clearly messes up its help structure.

This is a post touch, right? But he gets the ball 20 feet out, then has the defense on a string as long as those help defenders have to stay with Smith at the arc and the 5 man at the rim.

Kaufman-Renn is a post scorer, yes, but it’s Purdue’s ability to use him a lot of different ways and create for him a lot of different matchups that make a great overall scorer.

Great example here, as Purdue works a perimeter guy into the switch, TKR pulls him out, then backs him down and goes. This bigger, stronger Vince Edwards type of stuff.

Just bully-ball here and a timely play call from Purdue knowing freshman Sebastian Williams-Adams was playing with two fouls.

But just the spacing it creates when Kaufman-Renn sets up this far out really stresses defenses, which must have been why Kentucky was doubling him 20 feet out in an exhibition game.

THE LOB THREAT’S RIPPLE EFFECTS

What do these two plays have in common?

The answer: Both times the last man standing at the rim bails out to recover to whichever big man they’ve seen dunking lobs for Purdue all season. This is kind of the time of year when everyone’s shown their hands, so the chess match kind of begins.

All those lobs early this season were bound to mean layups later. Against Auburn, it actualized.

Now, here’s the lob threat utilized in press break. This should have been an and-one.

PURDUE DEFENSE

Purdue hasn’t just been good defensively lately. It’s been great.

Here’s the plan in a nutshell.

Purdue is not picking up the ball full-court in order to stay compact on defense against Tahaad Pettiford. CJ Cox, a guard, is the initial defender on Keyshawn Hall, a 6-10, 240-pounder but a perimeter-oriented guy, in order to chase him off screens and stay in front of him if he dribbles. Purdue’s having Cluff hedge pretty aggressively up top in order to protect the lane, knock out jumpers off ball screens, etc.

This is actually a breakdown, because with all these moving parts, TKR is supposed to be the “low man” in the lane, but he’s late here.

Happened again a bit later.

Outside of that, Purdue was really on top of things, really quick to spots and really cohesive.

And Daniel Jacobsen was a game-changer. Young man’s growing up fast.

This whole sequence is an eye-opener, from the contest on the three, to the recovery and block to the rim-running.