If it were up to Trey Kaufman-Renn, he would play center.

There, the junior becomes like he was in high school: faster than his positional opponents, more skilled. And while he doesn’t carry the size to dominate down low, the fits he can give opponents on the end of Braden Smith’s pick-and-roll dishes make the point moot.

Kaufman-Renn’s contributions from the five spot helped Purdue close an uneven win against Yale Monday. Playing the last five minutes there, he flashed his ability as a mismatch when he was fouled twice, knocking down all four foul shots, as well as his defensive versatility – he switched onto Yale’s microwave guard, John Poulakidas, well beyond the 3-point line. He scored 17 points all told, on only eight shots, shooting 7-of-9 at the line.

Unfortunately for Kaufman-Renn, though, his position is not up to him, and his coach, Matt Painter, prefers the 6-foot-9 big man at forward.

“I’m slowly trying to convince him,” Kaufman-Renn protested.

Painter’s cause for concern can be found in the box score, the same one which expounds Kaufman-Renn’s offensive abilities – Painter sees the 50 points Yale scored in the paint and shudders.

“We’re used to playing a 7-footer as our five,” Kaufman-Renn said. That’s part of the problem. With Boilermaker great Zach Edey manning the back side of Purdue’s defense last year, the team often didn’t pay for break-downs further from the basket.

“But now we don't have that,” said senior center Caleb Furst, the only player on the team who knows what life was like before Edey became a dominant force, and is experiencing life after.

There are a litany of defensive issues Purdue has to solve as its schedule thickens to include No. 2 Alabama, No. 15 Marquette and national semifinalist NC State by the end of the month.

“We gotta have guys that can go get the basketball, and we’ve gotta contain the dribble better,” Painter said after his team tied a fringe-NCAA Tournament team in rebounding for the second-straight game.

Once a Yale guard dribbled through Purdue’s perimeter defense Monday, help would come flying in, exposing the Boilers elsewhere. Sometimes they succeeded with their sheer numbers. But better teams will exploit that kind of scrambled defense with a quick pass and shot, Painter said.

Having a 7-footer on the back side helps. Purdue had a good one in 7-foot-4 Daniel Jacobsen before the freshman fell victim to a tibia fracture that ended his season. Monday night, Yale found layups against a napping Purdue defense more eager to stop 3s.

“That’s a lack of awareness,” Painter said.

Now consider, with those defensive issues in mind, a lineup in which the Boilers’ tallest player is the 6-foot-9, appropriately wing-spanned Kaufman-Renn. Painter did, and decided to go with it. But that doesn’t mean he liked it.

“All the lineups worried me,” he said.

Kaufman-Renn has never played the role of primary rim-protector. But the junior thinks that whatever a lineup with him at center loses in size, it more than makes up for in offensive fireworks and defensive versatility.

“I think when you can get (6-foot-7 Camden Heide) who’s a bigger guard, as the four, I don’t think we give that much off,” Kaufman-Renn said. “Then we can switch five ways, we can do so many different ball screen defenses that I think we can get away with it.”

Painter agreed Monday night. But that was more of an indictment on Purdue’s collection of post players than vindication of Kaufman-Renn’s theory.

“Nobody was terrible, but who was good?” he said of his front court. “They’re just there.”

A “small-ball” lineup like the one Kaufman-Renn favors would be a lot more feasible if Purdue’s perimeter defense improves, as well as rebounding. Kaufman-Renn only grabbed one offensive board; three Yale Bulldogs had more.

A step in the right direction were Camden Heide and Myles Colvin’s contributions in Monday’s second half. Both sophomores were widely expected to make a jump this year, and have the right combination of size and skill to fit into smaller lineups. Painter praised Colvin’s defense, Heide’s rebounding and both players’ shot making.

Perhaps the winning point in favor of a small lineup is a stat which became prescient again Monday night: Purdue eclipsed 90 points, and won its 120th-straight game when doing so.

Maybe Kaufman-Renn is right. With him at center, maybe offense can be Purdue’s best defense.