1/2/2022 basketball Edit

As Big Ten play resumes, the game changes for Purdue

Brian Neubert • BoilerUpload

GoldandBlack.com staff

Beginning Monday night, so much changes for Purdue, and everyone else in the Big Ten.

The third-ranked Boilermakers resume their hunt for a Big Ten championship with a home meeting with No. 24 Wisconsin, a team for which much has changed yet so much has remained the same.

The same can be said virtually every year about the Big Ten as a whole, as it's always one of the most competitive and consistent, defense-minded and best-coached leagues in college basketball and the one where the difference between non-conference play and conference action is the starkest.

"Just the familiarity more than anything," Painter said. " ... Everybody kind of knows one another. It's not really a weakness for anybody but I don't think it's really a strength for anybody, unless you just have more of an experienced team. That's where our strength should lie."

Purdue's one of the best teams in the country, but has already been proven to be vulnerable by Big Ten play. During the two-game December swing, Iowa rallied from 19 down in the second half to put a scare in the Boilermakers; next game, then-top-ranked Purdue was beaten by middling Rutgers in Piscataway. That game will forever be remembered for Ron Harper's buzzer-beating heave, but Purdue lost that game because It was outplayed for the majority of the 39:59 prior.

The jump from non-conference play to conference play will be a double-edged sword, and could in some ways actually help Purdue.

For one thing, the Big Ten is the most physical conference in the country, and Purdue might be its poster boy this season.

Against low- and mid-major non-conference opponents, small ball can be a real nuisance. Against the powers Purdue has faced from other leagues — the ACC's North Carolina and Big East's Villanova — those teams' ability to shoot from the frontcourt and play fast did pose some challenges for Purdue, though this Purdue team has looked more adaptable to different styles than most of its predecessors.

But with Trevion Williams and Zach Edey, the move toward more consistently facing traditional size and more regulated pace might play to the Boilermakers' strengths.

"We've been playing a lot of under-sized teams and having a lot of mismatches on the floor with our size," Williams said. "Having guys with a little more equal size, you can be a little more physical, which helps us. It's how we train, it's how we practice, it's how we prepare."

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Painter's team will be set apart this season by that element, by the presence of two of the best centers not only in the Big Ten but in the country. But that's luxury's value will be determined by those players' ability to impose their will on games in the form of optimal post position and a high level of influence in the fouls-drawn and rebounding columns.

Big Ten play puts a premium on a team's strengths showing up every night, as everything becomes a little (or a lot) harder.

Offensive execution will not come as easily for Purdue as it has to this point. Defenses will be better prepared, better positioned, more physical and, well, grabbier.

That reality has already been apparent. Purdue's points per possession totals against Rutgers (1.05) and Iowa (1.01) stand by a wide margin as its two lowest of the season thus far.

The onus on halfcourt execution is amplified by Big Ten competition.

So far, Purdue has been dominant on the offensive glass this season and often really productive in transition offense, courtesy largely of Jaden Ivey.

"You can't steal as many points when you play people like Wisconsin," Painter said. "You're not going to be able to get on the glass (as easily) and you're definitely not going to be able to get in transition as much.

"It doesn't mean you can't (be productive) in those two areas. It's just harder. So you need to be better in the halfcourt on offense and defense."

That'll be true for the whole Big Ten season, so some of the areas where Purdue's been able to snow opponents under may or may not be sustainable to the same extent.

Purdue knows it has to be better playing the game straight-up, and winning Big Ten-style.

"We need to focus on (our) defense a lot more and being sharp and crisp in our communication and having as few breakdowns as possible," said forward Mason Gillis, maybe Purdue's most vocal player at the defensive end. "It's about being able to stay on the same page for the full 30 seconds of every defensive possession. Whenever we don't break down, that's normally when we can get out in transition and get some easy buckets."

Purdue is one of the better rebounding teams in college basketball, but last time out, Nicholls totaled two dozen second-chance points off 14 offensive rebounds, highlighting a need to be as attentive on the glass as possible.

"With Wisconsin, they're really familiar with what we do," Painter said, "and we're familiar with them, but who's going to be (more) physical, who's going to play the hardest, who's going to execute the best, who's going to get the 50/50 balls? That's who's really going to win the day when it comes to Big Ten play."

After a difficult two-game swing in New Jersey and New York, Purdue returned home and obliterated Butler, one of the Boilermakers' best all-around performances of the season.

The two buy games that followed, Purdue did appear to coast a little bit, as if looking forward to those more consequential games to come.

Those games resume Monday night.

"This is what we've been waiting on, what we've been working toward," Williams said. "Our preparation and our energy have to change. Every game counts now. Not that the other games don't count, but conference games, it means a little more. Games will be a little more heated."

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