Big shots have become PJ Thompson's identity at Purdue
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When North Carolina State visited Mackey Arena on Dec. 2 of 2014 for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, it was the seventh game of P.J. Thompson's Purdue career, early in a season where his minutes would come and go as Jon Octeus held down point guard for the Boilermakers.
But on this night, fouls haunted Octeus, tossing 20 minutes of playing time — and a signature opportunity — toward Thompson.
His moment came, and Thompson delivered.
With 4:58 to play in a back-and-forth game that had been tied 22 seconds earlier, Thompson buried a three-pointer that gave Purdue a six-point lead en route to a 66-61 win.
Here's what happened.
Down 59-56, N.C. State missed a wing jumper that would have made it a one-point game. Kendall Stephens rebounded and threw an outlet pass to Vince Edwards, who dribbled up the floor to the left wing, pivoted and pitched the ball to Thompson filling in behind him.
Without so much as a moment of consideration, the 5-foot-9 freshman hoisted the spot-up three. There were 29 seconds on the shot clock. Shot clocks were 35 seconds back in those days.
He splashed it.
Purdue's crowd erupted, reveling in the theatre of the smallest player on the team making a big shot in a big moment.
It was a sign of things to come, as it's turned out.
Such things have become routine at Purdue for Thompson, the Boilermakers' starting point guard the past two seasons after that one season as a freshman backup.
"P.J. has always had that uncanny ability to step up in big moments," his father, LaSalle Thompson, said. "I think that's probably something you either have or don't have."
LaSalle Thompson understands basketball better than most.
The former Ball State star and overseas pro-turned-coach and trainer has been around the game from birth, product of a family immersed in the game for generations. P.J. Thompson is very much a reflection of that lineage.
That's why Thompson says he wants to be the player taking those shots for his team.
"Because I've worked my whole life to take it," he said, "worked my butt off to get to where I am today and have put a lot of shots up in my life.
"I feel like I deserve it."
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Twice in as many games now this NCAA Tournament, Thompson has made the biggest threes of the game.
Against Vermont, Purdue led by eight with just under two minutes to go, with that slippery slope from past years still very much in view. Thompson's three with 1:57 on the clock, off a pass from Caleb Swanigan, ended it, for all intents and purposes.
Purdue's in Kansas City right now for its Thursday Sweet 16 meeting with Kansas because of its helter-skelter 80-76 win over Iowa State, a win the Boilermakers might not get with Thompson's shot.
The Cyclones had just erased a 19-point second-half lead and moved ahead for the first time all night with just 3:11 to play, leaving Purdue's season hanging in the balance.
Twelve seconds later, Thompson's triple from the right side rolled all around the cylinder, kicked out, then off the backboard and back in.
Purdue led again. And it would never trail again.
Does Purdue win its Big Ten opener at Ohio State without Thompson's three of Swanigan's kick out, pushing a one-point lead to four with just 1:19 left? Considering the Boilermakers went on to win by just one, maybe not.
Does Purdue win at Maryland without Thompson's three off Swanigan's surreal tip-out of an offensive rebound with 3:22 left, putting Purdue up one on its way to another one-point win. Maybe not.
Purdue handled Michigan State in East Lansing this season. Does it still without Thompson's threes at 11:47 and 3:25 — the latter of which put the Boilermakers up double-figures. Probably, but maybe not.
The Boilermakers most likely still beat Georgia State way back in November without Thompson's three with 41 seconds left, but it did serve as a cherry on top of Purdue's unprecedented run to win that game after being down 12 with 7:14 to play. The shot turned a five-point lead into eight.
Has Thompson's missed important threes? Some, but it seems like his success rate has been close to extraordinary for Purdue.
"It was cool to see," teammate and classmate Vincent Edwards said of Thompson's key shot-making. "Now we're just kind of used to it. We just expect him to do it now. There's no pressure on him. He just takes the shots when they're there."
One of basketball's great theories is the "clutch gene," the concept of some players being better suited to make plays in those moments than most others.
Whether that's real or imagined doesn't matter as much as what is real: Willingness.
"They go hand in hand," LaSalle Thompson said. "When you look at a player who is 'clutch,' they definitely have the confidence within themselves to step up and try to make that shot. But those players also know they have to be ready to accept everything that goes with missing that shot.
"A lot of people don't want to live with the results of not making it. For as long as P.J. has been playing basketball, he has pretty much always wanted the basketball in those situations."
LaSalle Thompson said his oldest son's been that way for as long as he's played, and has often thrived in those situations, that this hasn't just been a Purdue phenomena.
"The moment's never fazed me," P.J. Thompson said. "I've played in big moments my whole life and I've wanted to be in big moments my whole life. You don't worry about it. You just shoot it like it's another shot.
"I think some people shy away from it. They'll run away from it and don't necessarily want the ball. I think I'm one of those guys who wants to take that shot, who wants the ball."
For a lot of reasons, the ball has found Thompson in the biggest moments. Swanigan is a common denominator tying so many of those plays together.
Every time, Thompson has been ready ‑ physically and mentally — to shoot, willing to shoot and happy to live with the result, whatever they may be. To one end of that point, he's never seemed terribly impressed by his own knack for this stuff.
He's been confident. Thompson credits his teammates and Matt Painter for that.
"I feel like the only time I ever get in trouble around here is when I'm not doing my job and taking my shots in rhythm," Thompson said.
There is probably something larger to this, though: That this is a player whose efforts toward validation have always been there. Such is life when you're small and proving yourself is a process that in basketball starts very early and never really stops.
"Those are the moments he's been waiting his whole life for," Edwards said. "He's been so overlooked his whole life, so underrated, so underestimated, however you want to put it."
