Recent extra work on shot paid off for Thompson in NCAA's first round

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DETROIT — As a career 40 percent three-point shooter — and someone who entered Purdue’s NCAA Tournament sticking 44 percent of threes this year — P.J. Thompson has reason to be confident in his stroke.

But it wasn’t mechanics that had Thompson in a bit of a slump lately.

He’d made only 23 percent of his three-pointers in nine games before Friday’s matchup against Cal State Fullerton, and graduate assistant coach Joey Brooks spotted why: Too often of late, Thompson wasn’t ready to shoot. So Brooks spent the last week working extra with Thompson on getting prepped before the catch, having his footwork right, having his hands right, having his mentality right.

That work showed up in a big way in the Boilermakers’ 74-48 first-round victory. Thompson drilled three-of-four three-pointers, all in the second half, to spark Purdue’s second-half surge.

“I did struggle about four, five games, six games, shooting the three. I was patient (Friday),” Thompson said. “I didn’t get a lot of looks in the first half. For me, it’s always game-to-game. It’s all about my shot preparation and being ready to shoot. Being a good shooter, the percentages will play out, but my problem is sometimes I’m not ready to shoot, and I was (Friday).

"In the second half, it paid off.”

Thanks, in part, to Brooks’ insistence.

In watching film, Brooks studied Thompson’s recent misses and noticed a trend. Then he worked with Thompson extra all week to address it.

“It’s very simple stuff, but it’s a major difference if you’re just ready to shoot, ready on the catch vs. being surprised then having to be ready and going into your shot motion,” said Brooks, a former Notre Dame player, in Purdue’s open locker room after the game. “It’s just that extra half-second. So eliminating that half-second of thought and just making a quick read is one of the things we really tried to drill in on this week. I think it helped him just from a mindset standpoint and being ready when the ball came his way.

“I just feel with P.J., when he’s confident and when he’s not taking that second of hesitation, it changes his body language, it changes the way he approaches the game, and that changes our team and kind of how we move the ball as a team.”

That certainly was the case Friday.

After a bit of a sluggish first half offensively — Purdue shot 33 percent from the field and only 27 percent on threes — Thompson came out ready to change things in the second half.

In more ways than one.

With the starters gathered near midcourt before the half started, Thompson got the last word — and players dispersed the huddle laughing. He told them, simply, to have fun and smile because “we have pretty smiles.”

Thompson drilled a three-pointer from the wing on Purdue’s first second-half possession, producing plenty of them.

His gritty defensive play fueled him more on offense, but so did that locked-in pre-catch mentality.

After that first three, Purdue raced on a 11-2 run to push the lead to double-digits, and Thompson made sure to keep piling on.

After Cal State switched to a zone about five minutes into the second half, Purdue had pretty ball movement in it, showed good patience and Ryan Cline ultimately swung it to Thompson, who stuck another three for a 20-point lead at the 14:20 mark.

“It’s huge for us. Him hitting outside shots, that dimension gives us another person they have to worry about,” Dakota Mathias said. “He’s always been a great shooter. That’s not surprising he was making those shots.”

Thompson’s third three, really, was just padding.

Purdue already was up by 26 points with under six minutes to go when Thompson got a steal, brought it up, dished it off and Carsen Edwards made sure to get it back to Thompson on the wing. The response: Another three-pointer.

It was exactly what Brooks hoped for.

“(The GAs) stay in my ear, ‘Be aggressive,’ ” Thompson said. “We’re a totally different team when I’m aggressive and playing confidently. In the second half, I thought I picked up our defensive intensity a bit and, obviously, made some shots as well.

“And we needed it, too, just to increase the lead. They were right there. In the NCAA Tournament, nine points feels like three. So to see the lead increase and get the crowd involved and get our teammates going, I thought it was good. We needed that intensity to pick up and just get going.”

In the end, Thompson finished with 12 points, his first double-digit scoring game since Feb. 3, three rebounds, two assists, a steal and no turnovers in 24 minutes.

No wonder, Coach Matt Painter chose Thompson to be the player to stick Purdue’s name on a jumbo NCAA bracket brought into the locker room afterward: He was a key piece to pushing the Boilermakers onward in the tournament.

“Obviously, he’s going to make clutch shots when we need him,” Isaac Haas said in the locker room afterward. “He kept getting wide-open looks. I don’t know why. Dude’s a good shooter.”

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