On the topic of playing in the NCAA Tournament, Matt Painter said, "We have that discussion every day the whole year."
Saturday, following the Boilermakers' 71-63 loss in Mackey Arena to Michigan, a game in which the final score was cleaned up late after the visitors led by 15 with three-and-a-half minutes left, the tone of that conversation may have changed.
Needless to say, for a team that's spent some time now with one foot out of the field, one foot in, this was a highly damaging loss, as most projections figured winning out at home over the final three games in West Lafayette was a non-negotiable element to Purdue's path to the Big Dance.
Now ...
Our breakdown.
WHAT HAPPENED
Purdue got off to a shaky start at both ends of the floor and Michigan weathered the danger zone visiting coaches have worried about when bringing their teams into Mackey Arena, those first 10 minutes or so. Michigan used an 11-2 run to turn a one-point Purdue lead into a 21-13 advantage of its own.
Consecutive Trevion Williams buckets, though, brought Purdue within four, as Michigan's offense stalled as it settled for too many threes, all of which missed.
Juwan Howard called a timeout.
His team's response: A 15-4 run to close out the first half, a 36-21 lead at the break and a lead the Boilermakers would never credibly threaten. Purdue didn't get within single-digits until it was out of time, for all intents and purposes.
"We had too many defensive breakdowns there, and they made us pay for them," Coach Matt Painter said.
That stretch was the difference in the game on a day where so much of what's haunted Purdue lately — and in some cases, all season — was laid bare.
The Boilermakers' lapsing attention to detail, particularly on the defensive end of the floor, for one thing. Michigan, now a winner of five straight and trending upward with Isaiah Livers back, wasn't great on Saturday. It barely turned the ball over — just three times — but it's shooting percentage of 38.5 for the entire game was actually worse than Purdue, who labored to score.
That said, Purdue was caught repeatedly in scramble mode defensively and paid a heavy price for its "little things" failings against Michigan's ball-screen offense, which yielded very Iittle on the scoring front for Michigan's guards — Zavier Simpson was 0-of-10 from the floor — but produced threes and drives for its forward and even its center and created the very penetration that set Purdue in motion, on its way oftentimes to breakdowns.
At least twice, Michigan cut inside or behind Boilermaker defenders while others cleared the lane for easy points.
"I think we were kind of lax defensively and kind of made dumb mistakes, where we know what we're doing, but just might not be focused or whatever it is," guard Sasha Stefanovic said. "They made simple plays and got easy layups."
Meanwhile, at the offensive end, Purdue's struggles continued.
The post wasn't as productive as the Boilermakers needed, as Trevion Williams — scorer of 36 last time vs. Michigan — finished with 18 on 8-of-21 shooting, but six of those points and three of those field goals came in the final 30 seconds or so.
"They didn't do anything different (defensively)," Williams said. "I got to my move. Some of them didn't fall. You can't do anything about that. ... Sometimes it just doesn't fall, and if it doesn't fall, you have to turn it up on the defensive end."
Aside perhaps from Stefanovic and his 13 points, Purdue's guards largely struggled. Eric Hunter, one of Purdue's relatively consistent scoring presences this season and a player who'd played particularly well during the three-game winning streak that preceded this four-game losing streak, scored five of his seven points in the final six-and-a-half minutes, 1-of-6 from the floor prior, and Jahaad Proctor — whose offensive second wind this season was an important part of Purdue's success earlier this month — finished with six points on six shots. Nojel Eastern, who found favorable matchups offensively often, was 3-of-8 for six points and committed a costly turnover throwing the ball inside at an inopportune second-half moment.
Purdue struggled, at both ends of the floor, looking like the opposite of the Boilermaker team that took a step toward securing its place in the NCAA Tournament after consecutive wins over Northwestern, Iowa and Indiana. Since, four straight losses, the latest against an opponent that may not have played its best, as Penn State did last time Purdue lost at home.
"It was one of those games that was there for us," Painter said. "We just had to play better and we didn't."
WHY IT HAPPENED
Purdue was a pretty solid, at worst, defensive team much of this season. Since, it has lapsed. For what reason, hard to say.
The final numbers — Michigan's 71 points, inflated by late free throws, and mediocre shooting percentages — belie the difficulty Purdue had guarding the Wolverines, who got a career-high 22 from freshman Franz Wagner and 19 from standout forward Isaiah Livers.
Painter's often brought up the term "concentration" this season, in a variety of contexts, about his team, none of those contexts being complimentary.
In the fourth of four consecutive losses, attention to detail again came to the forefront for all the wrong reasons.
"It comes down to your concentration and your want-to," Painter said. "You have to want to get the job done and be able to see it. We have to do a better job doing simple things, and that's the game of basketball, the repetition of simple things, and that's what discipline is, being able to do fundamental, simple things over and over again."
Decision-making was a key delineation between these two teams also, with Purdue's 12 turnovers to Michigan's mere three standing out, and Simpson, despite not making a field goal, was the game's most influential offensive presence.
WHO MADE IT HAPPEN
Simpson, again, was the game's most influential offensive player, even though the stats don't even come close to reflecting it. He was the guiding force behind a Michigan offense that ran its offense effectively and didn't turn the ball over.
Purdue often swung its matchups to have a wing (often Stefanovic) on Isaiah Livers and the forward (Evan Boudreaux) on wing Franz Wagner, and both Wolverines produced. Wagner's 22 points topped all scorers and Livers' 19 were probably precisely what Purdue feared about that matchup, though he only made one three, the strength of his game for his position.
Jon Teske, meanwhile, added 11 points, including a deflating three during Michigan's end-of-half run, and did a solid job making things difficult on Williams, for a Wolverine team that's gotten torn up all season by the Big Ten's best low-post scorers.
For Purdue, Boudreaux finished with 15 rebounds and was lifted up by his coach afterward as the example of what his team needs from effort and "fight" perspectives.
WHAT IT MEANS
Can Purdue still make the NCAA Tournament? You never know, but to even be in the conversation from here on out — and it's remarkable they're still even in the conversation to be in the conversation now sitting with a .500 overall record — things have to change fast. Things broke bad in a hurry following that seemingly breakthrough win at Indiana. Maybe they can break back just as quickly.
Thing is, Purdue's struggles seem to be rooted in depths seemingly beyond simply making shots or not making shots or getting a rebound or not getting a rebound, whatever it may be.
This unforeseen swoon at the worst possible time seems to speak to elements such as competitiveness and the like, and obviously that's a bad sign. This may not have been a must-win game, per se, but it was probably the closest thing there is from an NCAA Tournament perspective, and Purdue didn't respond.
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