Purdue basketball crossed the one-third mark of the season still working to define its identity.
The Boilermakers opened the season with their conventional big man setup, then scrapped it to lean into small ball. They put two freshmen in prominent roles early, then saw some more experienced players assert themselves more and claim starting lineup spots.
Revisiting some of our preseason questions about Purdue, we see see both where this team has grown, where it has stalled a bit, and where it must continue to progress.
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Must Braden Smith play at an All-American level for Purdue to reach its potential?
When Smith took over one-third of the team’s shots and scored 31 in the exhibition opener at Creighton, it felt like a glimpse into the point guard’s usage within the offense.
That has not really transpired so far, though the nature of that exhibition — with a minimum of defensive game-planning by either team — certainly factored into his volume that night.
The emergence of Trey Kaufman-Renn also lessened some of the burden on Smith. However, those predicting “As Smith goes so goes the Boilers” can point to some small sample-size evidence through 11 games.
When comparing Smith’s production in Purdue’s three losses against that in the eight victories, two things jump out. First, while he’s shooting 88.5% at the free throw line in the victories, he has attempted no free throws in the three losses.
Smith has never been a high-volume free throw shooter. He only went to the line in two of the six NCAA tournament games last season. He did not shoot a free throw in five regular-season Big Ten games — all victories — or a Big Ten tournament quarterfinal win over Michigan State.
So perhaps future games will prove this to be more a case of correlation than causation. However, teams beating Purdue succeeded at keeping the ball out of his hands or making him give it up against hedging and pressure in the halfcourt.
Now, Smith is shooting great from 3 in the losses — 47.1%, compared to an already strong 40.9% in the wins. Yet Smith on the attack down the lane generally signifies Purdue running its preferred offense. It’s one reason he ranks second nationally in assist rate per KenPom.
Though Smith can create and make his own shots, opponents probably prefer him taking those jumpers over distributing at will. (Also of note: He’s’ only shooting 33.3% on non-3-point field goals in those losses.)
Also, Smith’s assist-to-turnover rate in the eight victories is 3.89. (For context, if you’re 4.0 or higher, you’re top 10 nationally.) That rate falls by more than half in the losses — 1.81. Again, a reflection of three defensive-minded opponents coming after Smith away from Mackey Arena.
Smith came in as the Big Ten’s Preseason Player of the Year. Yet the evolution of this team always had to involve some evolution for Smith, as well. That process continues.
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Will center be a critical weak spot after Daniel Jacobsen’s injury?
On the one hand, the Boilermakers definitely have their center. Kaufman-Renn ranks sixth in the Big Ten in scoring and 13th in rebounding. As Texas A&M coach Buzz Williams pointed out multiple times last Saturday, he leads Purdue in usage rate — a measure of how many of a team’s possessions a player uses per game.
He currently ranks 10th on KenPom’s Player of the Year ranking. Next up: A clash with the player with a runaway lead at the top of that list, Auburn’s Johni Broome.
While Kaufman-Renn continues to adjust to playing center almost exclusively, the transition has gone fairly smoothly. Whatever technical improvements remain are usually accommodated for by how hard Kaufman-Renn plays each night.
So center is not really a problem.
As long as Kaufman-Renn is in the game.
Issues do lurk behind him, and not merely in the lack of rim protection the 7-4 Jacobsen could most obviously provide. Caleb Furst and Will Berg fall into Painter’s “hard to play consistently without consistent minutes” category. They’re averaging 10 minutes a night apiece, and Berg even went a few games without seeing the floor.
Their combined production equates to about 3.4 points and 1.8 rebounds per 10 minutes. Then we get into a conversation about production vs. presence. Berg ranks sixth among in the overly simplified plus-minus stat at plus-4.3. Furst is either ninth or 10th, depending on whether you count Raleigh Burgess, at minus-0.2.
Most nights, Purdue simply needs that collection of players to serve as a bridge between Kaufman-Renn’s breathers — and he doesn’t come off the court often. He’s averaged 32.6 minutes over the past five games. If he avoids foul trouble, it limits this potential vulnerability.
Can Purdue rebound enough in the aggregate to make up for Zach Edey’s absence?
As mentioned above, Kaufman-Renn is usually doing his part, grabbing eight or more boards in six of 11 games.
When Edey averaged 14.5 rebounds per game in last year’s NCAA tournament games alone, though, one man cannot fill the void alone. Purdue stressed rebounding across the rest of the lineup coming into the season — especially among the wings.
Currently, various analytics rank this team barely inside the top 200 in both offensive and defensive rebounding. The latter looms as a more urgent potential undoing for a team also more than occasionally struggling with turnovers. It can only give away so many possessions before what it does with the others does not matter.
Smith’s 4.9 rebounds per game rank second on the team, which is both good and bad. Camden Heide (4.1) and Myles Colvin (3.8) both contribute more on a per-minute basis. Fletcher Loyer grabbed a career-high seven in the win over Maryland, concluding a four-game stretch in which he averaged 4.75. Then he had none against Texas A&M.
Purdue just allowed 14 offensive boards to the best offensive rebounding team in the country, Texas A&M. That total was two under the Aggies’ per-game average coming in. But those 14 also came on 28 missed field goals. Not the ratio you’re looking for.
The most important thing to remember is this team — especially having converted to the small ball approach — is not trying to replicate the Edey levels of production. Rebounding becomes something this team sacrifices, within reason, for advantages elsewhere.
It needs to hold its own on the boards, but the turnovers are the bigger concern.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Purdue basketball’s burning questions: Braden Smith usage, backup bigs
