Balanced and dominant at both ends, Purdue routs Rutgers
PDF: Purdue-Rutgers stats
Analysis ($): Stat Blast | 3-2-1 | Takeaways
As a basketball program, Rutgers seems to be in a much better place than it was when it stepped through the Big Ten’s threshold a few years ago.
It’s competing much more so than it did back then.
Not necessarily winning, but competing.
Still, “competitive” is relative, and on most nights, the Scarlet Knights still don’t have much of a chance, especially away from Piscataway.
And for that reason as much as any, Purdue’s 89-54 win Tuesday night may not endure as particularly significant or memorable.
Still, it was quite a display of what this Boilermaker team can be capable of, an emphatic and complete, and thoroughly one-sided showing for a team that hasn't always built on success particularly well and was coming off its best win of the season.
Start with defense.
After taking a 10-point lead into halftime, Purdue gave Rutgers no chance thereafter.
Due more to the Boilermakers’ defense than anything, the Scarlet Knights made just seven shots after halftime on 26 tries, and four of those field goals came in the final four-and-a-half minutes, after Purdue was up 40.
Rutgers finished with 19 turnovers, which Purdue turned into 24 points, along with 20 fast-break points. Guard Geo Baker, who scored 25 last time these teams met, was 3-of-11 with five turnovers.
“Our ability to get in transition, whether it was turning them over or off of rebounds, really helped us and we were able to get some good looks,” Coach Matt Painter said, “not just at the rim, but also some threes.”
Purdue indeed turned its defense into scoring opportunities, attacking before the Knights could even establish their halfcourt defense, but also thrived in the halfcourt, driving the basketball to set up open jumpers. They made them.
Starting with a string of successive threes from Ryan Cline, Carsen Edwards, then Cline again, Purdue made its first seven shots of the second half, all good ones, paced by aggressiveness, ball movement and a stretch of play from Carsen Edwards in which one of college basketball’s elite scorers dominated play as a facilitator.
In the first five minutes of the half, Edwards set up a Cline three, a Matt Haarms three and a Nojel Eastern dunk, part of a ball-movement clinic of sorts, the result of which was a final team-wide tally of 20 assists against just eight turnovers.
“When you get angles and drive to the basket, they may help in,” Edwards said. “… When I get angles and can drive to the rim, or I can get in transition, if I see a guy open, just hit him. I trust in my guys to make shots, and they made shots.”
Edwards finished with 19 points and six assists — against just one turnover — but what defined Purdue on this night as much as anything was its balance. Six Boilermakers scored at least nine points, and not just because the game was a blowout and there were garbage-time stats to be had, but because it got significant offensive contributions from all over.
Its All-American led the way, netting his 19 points on a modest 12 shots, but making six of those shots and five threes on 10 tries. Purdue was 14-of-28 from three-point range.
Redshirt freshman Sasha Stefanovic gave Purdue key contributions in the first with a run of eight points, then extended it into the second half, finishing with a season- and career-best 14 points as part of his best game of the season. He made 4-of-5 three-pointers. Cline was 4-of-6 and finished with 12 points.
“It doesn’t make us one-dimensional offense,” Stefanovic said of Purdue’s balance of scoring. “When we’re able to attack more and be aggressive on the offensive end, I think it opens things up for everybody.
“When we have multiple people contributing, it helps.”
But it was again Trevion Williams that brought a previously missing interior presence to the Boilermakers’ offensive repertoire, producing balance.
Coming off the bench after he missed practice Sunday with a minor injury following the Wisconsin game, the freshman big man just kept producing, finishing with 16 points and 13 rebounds in less than 22 minutes. Had he scored one more point at Wisconsin, he’d be riding a run of three straight double-doubles mid-Big Ten season.
“We’ve got some big guys, too,” Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell said. “He went right at them.
“We take a lot of pride (in defense) and I think our post guys play pretty good defense, but we certainly didn’t tonight. He had his way around the basket.”
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