Matt Painter's come up with colorful ways to describe Michigan State's frontcourt physiques, from "bread trucks" to bouncers.
No matter which, it's code for this: Tough.
And physical.
The Boilermaker coach of the past 13-and-a-half seasons now called the sixth-ranked Spartans the most physical team he's seen in the Big Ten at any point during his tenure as his alma mater's coach.
His players don't have as extended a frame of reference, but they're not going to argue, not after studying the Spartans this week, specifically their trio of wide-bodied, barrel-chested big men — Nick Ward, Kenny Goins and Xavier Tillman, "enforcers," as Purdue center Matt Haarms called them.
"Really tough guys," said, "who are going to hit you every single time.
"We have to be ready to get hit, and dish out some hits, every single possession."
There will be challenges for Purdue against a front line trio that includes three players who all average a rebound-and-a-half more than any Boilermaker and actually brings an eight-a-game rebounder, Tillman, off the bench.
"They dominate games in the paint," Painter said. "They dominate games on the boards."
And they move well enough, Painter said, for Goins and Tillman to be able to functionally play away from the basket, guarding opponents' 4 men. Nowadays, the traditional power forward body type has become less prevalent because of those defensive limitations that can come with it.
The bodies are very different.
Haarms, who's coming off the bench the past few games for Purdue, is basically the polar-opposite physically from the Spartan bigs.
The same for backup 4 man Aaron Wheeler, who's tall and long and athletic, but narrow and obviously not as strong today as he'll be one day, and even then, he's still never going to look like Goins or Tillman or Ward, or play like them.
"It's going to be a challenge defensively," Wheeler said, "but I look at it, too, like they still have to guard me and I'm going to do my best to try to move them around, because they might not be used to having to run around the perimeter. I'll try to use that to my advantage, and try to hold my own on defense, rebounding and not letting them get (easy) post touches, things like that."
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That could be an important key to Purdue's success — make those Spartan bigs guard. Between Evan Boudreaux's ability to play on the perimeter as a 5 man, Haarms' mobility in screening action, Wheeler's perimeter game and Grady Eifert's ability to make threes, the combination of it all could offset Michigan State's brawn to some extent.
But there will be instances where it must be met head-on, notably on the glass, where Michigan State out-rebounds opponents, on average, by about a dozen, and averages 11.5 offensive rebounds per game.
"I have to do a better job trying to hit guys," Wheeler said, referring to blockouts, "because a lot of times I'll just try to use my athleticism against people. That's probably not going to work in this game. We've been working all week in practice on trying to hit early, because Coach Painter has emphasized that with those guys, if you keep hitting them and hitting them, they might eventually wear down."
Post defense comes to the forefront Tuesday night. Ward averages nearly 17 points, on 66-percent shooting, and is probably as foul-magnetic as any player in the conference.
"Of the teams we've faced so far, they definitely try to get it in the post the most, and really punish you by doing a lot of high-low and really forcing you to play post defense," said Boudreaux, who's often been asked to front the post to deny entry, because he may not possess prototypical center size.
Boilermaker players on Monday cited Maryland as the most relevant comparison they've seen to this point, because of the Terps' front line of Bruno Fernando and Jaylon Smith, though Smith isn't the same body type as Michigan State's bigs and Fernando doesn't get nearly the volume of back-to-the-basket touches as Ward will.
"Michigan State's another level in terms of their physicality," Boudreaux said.
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