Upon Further Review: Penn State

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’ 93-85 win Wednesday night over Penn State.

PDF: Purdue-Penn State statistics

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BRADEN SMITH

Couple little bits of nuance, the sorts of things that really set Braden Smith apart from other point guards, things that filter out the greats from the pool of goods.

Holding the ball too long gets normal point guards in trouble. Smith has a really uncommon knack for just hanging on for that extra 1/100th of a second to allow for traffic to clear, or for angle to reconstitute, whatever.

Earlier in the game, Purdue ran that same action, and when Ivan Juric locked on to him and stuck, Juric was able to deflect the ball out of bounds when Smith tried to throw the pass on the baseline side. In that first clip, Smith gets Juric to fly by while assessing his options to dump down to Oscar Cluff or go cross-court to CJ Cox. When the help defender commits to Cox, Smith hit the big.

Even better example of Smith’s patience, as he gets three defenders to commit to him before throwing this savant pass to Cluff.

Here’s a right-handed point guard going left, navigating a hedge, running up the recovering big man’s back, reading the help defender on the move, then making this picturesque pass across his body right into Cox’s shooting pocket.

Not normal.

First off here, tremendous rebound here by Jack Benter. Second, Smith knows that in transition, he has shown over and over an affinity for dropping it off to the trailing three-point shooter. He plays off that here, using Benter as bait. That little lateral step breaks open a path to the rim.

Penn State is playing Smith as a passer here, drifting away from the rim. Didn’t take Smith long to recognize it.

This is pretty nuanced, but the angle of this bounce pass just outside the defense’s reach really makes the whole play, leading Trey Kaufman-Renn into this shot fake.

Lastly, Smith has total mastery of all Purdue’s complex movements and misdirections on offense and knows how to use them to toy with defenses. Fletcher Loyer‘s baseline cut clears out the left corner for Cox to fill. Cluff is the decoy here.

This might be the pass of the season, not just the step-through to create the alley, but the absolute strike he throws to Loyer. His shooters in position to shoot is half the battle.

If you commit your bigs to really trying to disrupt Smith, defenses are really at his mercy, as Purdue’s point guard roasts defensive imbalance, preys on isolated bigs and pounces on retreating bigs who turn their backs on him.

Oh, and the screening.

What a set this was Purdue hit early in the second half.

SPEAKING OF GUARDS AS SCREENERS

• Cox springs TKR on this inbound.

Cox springs Cluff.

The TV cut off without showing the play developing, but pretty sure Cox’s jumper off an inbound came off him popping out of these screening looks.

OSCAR CLUFF

For all the other stuff Oscar Cluff has provided Purdue, this is easy to overlook: How he runs the floor and establishes deep post position ASAP. Loyer in particular is always looking for him.

And the offensive rebounding.

This was a backbreaker for Penn State.

PURDUE DEFENSE

Purdue has been really sound, energized and cohesive on defense, and that’s led to tremendous disruption.

Look how Gicarri Harris affects this play just by being, well, annoying.

“Active hands” …

Purdue’s approach is to be solid until you sense weakness, then go for it. It’s done a great job lately not taking silly risks.

Here’s Smith immediately recognizing someone who shouldn’t be dribbling dribbling, with his back turned to him and no ability to pass to the player Smith is helping off.

This is Harris’ pick-six and a great read by the sophomore, but it’s really created by Smith being a menace.

ETC

• Tremendous passing game for Kaufman-Renn, who has truly become a player you run offense through, and not just for.

• Was this really a foul on Loyer? Looks straight up and down, no?

• Now, this: The roll man clearly just takes out Benter here. It’s kind of grey in terms of what’s a foul and what’s not in terms of the roll man just taking out the close-out guy, but this isn’t a basketball move and it’s the big initiating the collision, not Benter tagging the roller. Penn State got away with one here.