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MILWAUKEE, Wis. — The last time Isaac Haas played Vermont, he got established in the post early.

As in immediately.

Purdue’s first offensive possession finished in a Haas dunk. In the next three minutes, he scored two more easy buckets on one-on-one matchups on the block.

The Catamounts had no answer for Purdue’s 7-foot-2, 290-pound mammoth of a man. They still don’t.

Few teams do, and if Haas plays with the laser-like focus that he did in Purdue’s last game, that could mean a run for the Boilermakers in the NCAA Tournament, which begins with Thursday’s game against Vermont at the BMO Harris Bradley Center.

With “a size advantage, a strength advantage and just a dominant inside presence,” as Haas called it, he could be the X factor.

“When he comes out and plays well, it makes it tough,” Purdue forward Vincent Edwards said, “because someone 7-2, as big as he is, establish his dominance in the post, you have to do a little bit extra and things you’re not used to. Because if you’re not doubling in the post and he has his game going, it can go good for us and be a really good game for him.”

Vermont will need to make a decision Thursday night.

Freshman Anthony Lamb said Vermont will handle Haas “as a group,” which would be a change from last season’s approach. (“I think they learned from that,” Haas said.) But team defense also has been a strength of the Catamounts’ defense this season, an ability to offer help when players get beat and get into rotations quickly, players said.

Coach John Becker said his team hasn’t altered practice to try to prepare for Haas’ size — no broomsticks have made appearances in workouts — but he joked there isn’t much he could do to simulate what Purdue’s posts, including 6-foot-9, 250-pound Caleb Swanigan, bring.

“We could try to score against a brick wall, probably the closest thing we could try to do to emulate the size,” Becker said.

Perhaps the best approach the Catamount could take is not just to double but to try to frustrate Haas. He admits he’s struggled at points this season at maintaining concentration and becoming overwhelmed, and that typically leads to turnovers, missed shots and miscues on defense.

But Haas had kind of a wake-up call toward the end of the regular season, he said, after making only 6-of-16 shots and had seven turnovers against Michigan, Indiana and Northwestern to end the year. He preached to himself the importance of keeping his game simple, staying locked in and playing hard.

That approach yielded major results in Purdue’s last game, the loss to Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament, when Haas scored 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting and had five rebounds and only one turnover in 15 minutes.

Haas said it’s imperative his focus is on doing his “job.”

“What it looks like for me is getting deep in the post, making simple moves, strong moves to the basket, because nobody can stop me when I do that. Nobody in the country I believe can. I know that for a fact, actually,” he said. “For this team, it just means if everyone does their job, whether it be me Carsen, Vince, Biggie, anyone, if we all do our job then we’re going to win the game.”

Vermont doesn’t have a player taller than 6-foot-8, which would seem to play to Haas’ advantage at least when he’s on the offensive end. But he realizes there’s a perception that he can’t hack it on defense in those situations — if he’s pulled away from the basket to defend a pick-and-roll or pick-and-pop or if he’s matched against a more mobile center.

But Haas has made strides in his junior season on the defensive end, especially when he’s on the perimeter, as he’s been more communicative with teammates and more assignment-sound. If he’s supposed to come flat off the ball screen, he stays flat. He’s working to take the right angles, too, and to get back to the basket quickly with the guy who dives to the rim — or to the wing if a guy pops.

He knows Michigan’s D.J. Wilson stuck a couple three-pointers against him in the Big Ten Tournament, but Wilson also had gotten hot already. In the second half, Haas said he didn’t allow a basket.

“I told myself, ‘No one is going to score on me.’ And I didn’t let it happen,” Haas said. “Every time, I looked at Coach and said, ‘Told you.’ ”

Haas expects to be that locked in on defense Thursday, too.

“They won’t necessarily pull me every time (an opponent goes small). They’ll let me give it a try,” Haas said. “That’s not going to be a problem (Thursday). I’m going to do what I’ve got to do to stay in. I told him, ‘Just have a little trust in me, and we’re going to do well.’ ”

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