Upon Further Review: Purdue’s exhibition at Arkansas
Following each Purdue basketball game this season — or at least most — GoldandBlack.com will take a closer look back at some finer points in our long-standing Upon Further Review series. Today, the Boilermakers’ 81-77 overtime exhibition loss at Arkansas.
PURDUE’S DEFENSE
Purdue’s defensive issues were brought on by its turnovers, but also some really shoddy ball-screen defense at times, both by the backup bigs and Zach Edey playing with foul trouble. I want to underscore this very important point: Purdue did not extensively prepare specific to the opponent for this game. A real scouting report might have cleaned up a lot of this.
But here’s an example of the success driving and kicking Arkansas had. Lance Jones seems to do a decent job going over the screen and staying with his man, but there’s no containment here, as Edey gets caught at a bad angle and isn’t about to foul and Fletcher Loyer seems to be assigned to bluff and stay on his man. One concern that this play in particular underscores is the defensive immobility of this frontcourt lineup. TKR is not going to be someone who’s going to cover a ton of ground. When he slides in behind Edey to try to guard the rim — there’s just no getting back to his man.
Here, Arkansas gets downhill with ease, but credit Trey Kaufman-Renn for making a hell of a recovery and forcing a miss.
Here, I don’t know what this is, because Caleb Furst looks like he’s kinda hedging this ball screen, but not really. Again, something detailed prep likely would have cleaned up.
That said, too, Purdue just got flat beat to spots one-on-one often, as well. Arkansas really got the ball where it wanted.
All this being said, Arkansas made a ton of tough, contested jumpers and shots off scrambles initiated by Boilermaker deflections.
This actually was one of the better-defended plays of the day probably, but Arkansas was taking playground shots and making playground shots.
Here’s another example of a scramble that just fell in the Hogs’ favor. Lance Jones looks like he gets hit in the face, so he’s a step late to close on a shooter to cover for Morton, who started the merry-go-round with a deflection, a great job in help around the basket, precisely what Purdue means when it says it needs to better with back-line rim protection.
A POSITIVE: PICK-AND-ROLL OFFENSE
Braden Smith and Zach Edey picked up where they left off last season in pick and roll. Wasn’t perfect, but against Arkansas’ defensive approach and its length and athleticism, it was pretty good. 9a late turnover by Smith never should have happened, because moments earlier Edey was hacked on what should have been a dunk, but that’s neither here nor there.
Smith made threes off ball screens.
Tell me which former Boilermaker all-American this reminds you of.
Then what happens once Smith has established himself as a threat to make shots? Edey’s man comes after Smith and Smith picks it apart.
Effective little switch-up for Purdue in crunch time here, using Lance Jones to “ghost screen” (I think would be the term) Smith into a ball screen with Edey. Instead of throwing the ball up to Edey, Smith shot fakes and draws a foul in a big minute. Here’s guessing this is an example of Smith showing future opponents something here that will get Edey a few dunks.
MISC
• Nice little perk of faving two point guards on the floor for Purdue: It could split them far apart and completely take away Arkansas’ ability to press/trap either. Purdue’s three-handling guards are all involved here, with Fletcher Loyer being the in-bounder. IIRC, Purdue previously used its 4s to throw the ball in.
Despite shooting 50-plus-percent and thus having lots of made field goals to set its defense off, Arkansas barely fazed Purdue with backcourt pressure.
• Few weeks back we wrote about the baseline drive and what it could mean for Purdue’s offense with these new wings. This is it right here. Get the defense moving, get a defender closing out to the corner without his shoulders square, and see what Camden Heide or Myles Colvin can do. This is the role Purdue stashed Nojel Eastern in his sophomore season, effectively.
• There were a couple moments where Arkansas’ length and burst gave TKR an issue or two.
One came in pick-and-roll with Fletcher Loyer, on a brilliant pass by Loyer that resulted in TKR’s shot being blocked from behind.
The first was this play early on when Purdue tried to go high-low. A pass fake here might have helped, but he also needs experience with this stuff.
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