Breakdown: Purdue's loss at Nebraska
LINCOLN, Neb. — This seemed all set up for Purdue, the Boilermakers' Big Ten road opener coming at Nebraska, a team that's struggled badly this season during the early stages of a rebuild.
And the Cornhuskers played on Friday night, at Indiana, while Purdue enjoyed — depending on your perspective on finals week — a week off.
Purdue was a heavy favorite, and expected to push its league record to 2-0.
Nope.
Nebraska mostly controlled the game from the outset and bounced ice-cold-shooting Purdue, 70-56.
WHAT HAPPENED
Playing with an energy distinctly superior to Purdue's, Nebraska surged to an immediate double-figure lead, as the Boilermakers — playing big — struggled to keep the Cornhuskers — who play fast — out of transition.
That was a game-long issue for Purdue, one of many, but didn't stop the visitors from having myriad chances, opportunities to mount or extend runs while Nebraska struggled to score, as it's prone to do.
Every time, Purdue's inability to capitalize offensively showed up, and every time, it seemed like, Nebraska made a play when it needed one.
Nebraska was the better team on Sunday, clearly.
"If we could have come back and won this game," Matt Painter said, "it would have been a real shame. Nebraska played harder than us and was more ready to play."
Nevertheless, Purdue found a golden opportunity with a little more than eight minutes left, when Eric Hunter's three-pointer — one of only a half dozen for Purdue, on 35 attempts — made it just 52-50.
From there, a Nebraska team 36 hours removed from an overtime game three states over outscored Purdue 18-6.
WHY IT HAPPENED
Lots of reasons, but none bigger than this: Purdue shot 30 percent.
That doesn't necessarily mean it was bad on offense.
It generated numerous great looks on the interior, good looks from three-point range and countless high-percentage opportunities on the offensive glass.
However, it finished the game 6-of-35 from three-point range, 18-of-44 from two-point range and got only a dozen second-chance points off 19 offensive rebounds. Jahaad Proctor, Purdue's leading scorer, was 2-of-11, seeing a run of 25 straight double-digit-scoring games snapped. He, Sasha Stefanovic and Eric Hunter — Purdue's starting guards — were 7-of-31 from the floor, and Aaron Wheeler 1-for-8 off the bench.
Meanwhile, Purdue needed to leverage its significant advantage in the post.
Trevion Williams was mostly unstoppable, finishing with 18 points and 16 rebounds, but he missed a number of high-percentage looks in the first half before making all of them in the second and finishing 9-of-13. Matt Haarms, almost inexplicably, was 1-of-7 from two-point range before hitting his head on the floor with six minutes left and suffering a concussion.
"We had to make them pay," Painter said of post offense.
It didn't do so nearly enough.
Purdue committed only nine turnovers, but that number's impact lied in Nebraska turning them into 13 points, finishing with 17 "fast-break" points.
One team tried to play big, the other fast, and on this day, fast won by a wide margin. Nebraska had two uncontested layups off Purdue turnovers before the first media timeout, as well as a dunk made possible by beating Purdue to a long offensive rebound.
At halftime, whether it was a style-of-play concession or not, Painter abandoned the Matt Haarms-and-Trevion Williams starting pairing, swapping out Williams for Nojel Eastern.
"He brings a lot of energy on defense," Williams said of Eastern. "Sometimes we rely on him too much. We shouldn't have to, but he brings that energy we need to get stops."
That was something Purdue's done very well lately. It's been excellent defensively.
Sunday in Lincoln, Purdue saw Nebraska control pace more than it would have liked, but also may have seen its offensive issues spill over.
"We've kind of been notorious for that," guard Eric Hunter said, "for letting our offense affect us on the defensive side."
WHO MADE IT HAPPEN
Nebraska's guards outplayed their counterparts.
Dachon Burke scored 18 for Nebraska, and Cam Mack recorded a triple-double, with 11 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists.
Overall, Nebraska was 11-of-30 from three-point range, and had a good number of shot-clock-beating plays or shots to stem Purdue's momentum.
"They made a lot of contested shots," Williams said. "From the beginning Coach told us they were going to make shots like that. Some may be contested, but every time they touch the ball they're trying to get theirs. ... He said some of those contested ones, they're going to fall and be ready for it."
WHAT IT MEANS
It means Purdue has issues to iron out, clearly. This was hoped to be a high-quality shooting team, and it hasn't shot particularly well this season, with Sunday looking like a bottoming out.
This felt like a referendum of sorts on the big lineups, because had Nebraska not jumped out to a quick 10-point lead, if Purdue starts better against a smaller, faster, more athletic team, maybe things unfold differently from there. There's no telling.
But larger Issues came to the forefront on Sunday. Nebraska's energy and effort were better than Purdue's. The Cornhuskers dictated pace and ran down the sorts of long rebounds the Boilermakers had to keep them from running down.
Some may suggest this was a finals-week snooze-bar type of showing. That wouldn't be good.
Some may suggest Purdue overlooked the Cornhuskers. That would be worse.
Regardless, this was no fluke. Nebraska beat Purdue straight-up Sunday.
"They were better than us," Painter said.
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