Fullerton backcourt hopes to test Purdue's defense
DETROIT — Purdue will be a heavy, heavy favorite Friday in its NCAA Tournament East Regional opener vs. Cal State Fullerton, but the possibility certainly exists that the 15th-seeded Titans could present some tricky matchups with their backcourt-drive offensive style.
It’s simple.
“There’s no secret to what we do,” as associate head coach John Smith said.
Fullerton will attack off the dribble, looking to get Purdue’s defense moving around, using a ball-screen-heavy attack, the very sort of look the Boilermakers just used their extra prep time for the NCAA Tournament to fine-tune after its defense took on some water toward the tail end of the season.
“I think we’re going to try to use the strength of their bigs against them,” guard Khalil Ahmad said. “Obviously, they’re 7-2 or whatever, so if we can get them up high on the floor, we can drive past them and a lot of pull-ups might be open. We’ll try to use that against them.”
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The Titan guards can definitely score.
"We have a lot of respect for them," Purdue senior P.J. Thompson said. "After watching film of them, it looks like they can play at a lot of high-major places in college basketball."
Fullerton is led by Kyle Allman Jr., who’s averaged 19-and-a-half points per game this season on nearly 49-percent shooting, and Ahmad, who averages 15.3.
“You can’t take us both away pretty much and we both have the ability to make plays and get the ball to our teammates when they’re open,” Ahmad said, “so you can’t just faceguard him and try to play me straight-up, because we’re going to exploit that, exploit whatever the defense gives us.”
It starts with Allman, who’s 6-foot-3 and wiry and explosive off the bounce, as evidenced by the fact he’s drawn more fouls than virtually any player in the country, 163 of them this season, per Synergy Sports.
That’s an astronomical average of 5.3 fouls drawn per game, good for an average of 7.7 free throw attempts, of which he’s makes 75 percent.
Allman welcomes contact.
“That must be the New York in him,” Ahmad said.
During its media session today, Purdue agreed with fairly obvious comparisons between Fullerton’s scorers and those of Rutgers: Corey Sanders and Geo Baker, the tandem that took turns this season making difficult, one-on-one, often-buzzer-beating shots against the Boilermakers.
“They play a lot of iso ball and get to the paint whenever they want,” Purdue senior Dakota Mathias said. “They’re always looking to push and they can shoot a little bit, too. Allman and Ahmed and can shoot threes. It’s going to be a challenge for us.”
Recent results suggest it may be.
Isolation and ball screens, some of the simplest offense there is, on their surface have been some of Purdue's foremost vulnerabilities. The Boilermakers have shown to be a team better suited to defend in crowds, vulnerable out in space, especially against teams strong at driving the basketball or creating for themselves.
But a week spent focusing on such things led at least one Boilermaker to this conclusion: "A lot of our defensive mistakes were about communication," Thompson said. "It wasn't because we didn't know what we were doing. It was that we weren't communicating at a high level, so talking was a big part of our week, as well."
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