No members of the current Purdue basketball team have gone through what the Boilermakers are experiencing: a four-game losing streak. Not since the 2019-20 season has veteran head coach Matt Painter seen his squad drop four straight.
Since beating USC on February 7th, the Boilermakers have succumbed to Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan State, and in-state rival Indiana. The loss to the Hoosiers was particularly galling; Purdue held a 12-point halftime lead but was outscored by 25 points in the second half.
Because Painter and his crew have been lucky enough in recent years to avoid such an extended slide, they may be struggling with how to remedy the situation. With that in mind, two ideas are offered below on how Purdue can turn the tide in time for a deep March Madness run.
Junior forward Trey Kaufman-Renn has performed admirably this season as an undersized “big” man. At 6’9″, he is called upon nightly to battle with the opponents’ most formidable post presence, and his statistics this year show how well he has fared.
Through 28 games this season, Kaufman-Renn leads Purdue in scoring with 19.2 points per outing while shooting over 60% from the field. He has also grabbed 6.1 rebounds each game while averaging 30 minutes of court time per game. He has been forced to wage those interior battles virtually alone since he’s proven to be the only viable offensive threat in the paint.
The Boilermakers’ other big men have been non-existent. When Caleb Furst, Will Berg, Raleigh Burgess, or Camden Heide play alongside Kaufman-Renn, it is almost as if Purdue is playing five-on-four offensively. Teams know they can sag down on him because none of the other four pose a threat down low; most times those players play “hot potato” with the ball and want no part of it.
When the statistics of those four Boilermakers are combined, the results are eye-opening. Between them, they average 52 minutes of playing time but only 13.6 points and 9.6 rebounds per game. That spot must contribute more for Purdue to compete in March when they face teams with athletic big men.
Painter is in a tough spot. He knows he must lean on his junior backcourt tandem of Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer for leadership and scoring. Those two have proven trustworthy throughout their time in West Lafayette, especially this season.
Smith, a Big 10 Player of the Year candidate, has been nothing short of remarkable this season. He has poured in 15.8 points, grabbed 4.6 rebounds (which is second on the team), and dished out 8.8 assists (second in the country) per game. Without him, Purdue would most likely be looking at a 19-loss season instead of enjoying the 19 wins they have thus far.
Loyer has been special, too. While averaging just under 14 points, his 46.7% shooting from three-point land ranks him in the top five nationally.
What is troubling, however, is how many minutes Smith and Loyer are forced to expend each night. Rarely are they subbed out unless the game is out of reach in the final minutes. Smith’s 36.5 minutes and Loyer’s 31 minutes per game are starting to show its wear.
Case in point: On February 23rd at Indiana, Purdue shot the lights out in the first half, connecting on six of their final seven shots from distance, to lead 37-25 at the half. Early on after intermission, Smith uncharacteristically turned the ball twice on consecutive possessions in the backcourt, directly leading to two Hoosier baskets. That was part of a 28-3 Indiana run that turned a double-digit Boiler lead into a double-digit Hoosier win.
Indiana wore down Smith and the other Boilermakers in the second half. Defensively, it appeared as if they had seven or eight players on the court hounding Purdue’s players. Obviously, that was not true, but Smith and Loyer were not able to match the energy and intensity thrown at them.
After 28 games, Purdue’s freshmen have seen and experienced enough to shake their greenness. First-year players Burgess, C.J. Cox, and Gicarri Harris have all shown glimpses of great things to come, but their progress has been remarkably mediocre and not enough to support their veteran teammates.
Kaufman-Renn, Smith, and Loyer need help offensively and must be able to rely on the other Purdue team members to shoulder more of the load. If those three are forced to continue to register heavy minutes during high-pressure games, they will not have the legs to lead the Boilers to Big 10 and NCAA glory in March.
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