THE ESSENTIALS

THE OVERVIEW

It's hard to win on the road in college basketball. Leave aside Purdue's loss at home to Rutgers for a moment and let's discuss their travels in the Big Ten thus far. Nebraska took them to overtime (W, 65-62). They needed a triple with 10 seconds left, followed by Ohio State's worst offensive possession of the season, to win 71-69 in Columbus. Purdue then found themselves the team down a score with 10 left versus MSU. The difference, of course, is Michigan State has nobody taller than 6'9". Purdue just got the ball to Zach Edey.

It helped that all three of those opponents airballed threes at the buzzer, but in general having an Edey has been the trick. From spots 1-4 the Boilermakers aren't all that different from the rest of the vast mediocre middle of the Big Ten. At spot 5, they have the most ludicrous former hockey player in basketball. Their defensive strategy is to make every shot an impossible parabola over the 7'4" guy. Their offensive strategy is…well they have Matt Painter so their strategy is actually very good and varied. But even that is predicated on the fact they can always arc it to Edey in the low post. If you arc it at the basket instead, Edey will just get the rebound. In a different age a creature such as Edey would be a high priority for the pros. In today's NBA, they've learned to emphasize an Edey's defensive limitations away from the rim by stockpiling 6'8" freaks who can rain down threes.

Michigan had a guy like that. Jett Howard has shown he's quite adept at using screens to terrorize three-guard lineups, and correspondingly rose to become the top Big Ten player on draft boards. Then he fell on his ankle against Minnesota last weekend, and reappeared in a boot. The consensus guess is it's a high ankle sprain, which is not serious for his long-term prospects, and the kind of thing you can play on after a few weeks and be 75% of your normal self the rest of the season.

For Michigan, it's probably the final knife in the belly of their Tourney bid. It's not just that they were going to need 100% of their best—and most quickly improving—scorer to make a run down the stretch. They needed him tonight, their last chance before the Big Ten Tourney at a signature victory.

THE US

My graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

No Jett. Maybe no Jett ever again. Probably no unhobbled-by-injury Jett ever again. :(

THE LINEUP CARD

My graphic [click for big]:

YMMV if the freshman guards deserve their stars. I'm trying to put myself in the position of hypothetical Purdue blogger here, who thinks Smith has cut down on his turnovers enough and Loyer's ability to get the rim put him over recently as well. Matt D will say the ability to move your feet on defense is kind of important. Tell it to the snowman, neighbor.

THE THEM

Center Zach Edey is hard to miss, since when he's on the court he makes everybody else on it look like the people you play at the Y, except they lowered the baskets to 6 feet. After two years of development while splitting time with Trevion Williams, Edey is now the show. I try not to dwell too long the on the counterfactual where Matt Painter got his #1 center prospect Hunter Dickinson and Juwan occasionally shares his 7'4" Canadian with Brandon Naurato.

In this reality Edey had the perfect developmental track and emerged with an array of moves, like this pivot:

This NBA scouting report is a year old but mostly still holds:

The one from Wes Brown hits all the same notes. Edey is incredibly coordinated, and at the size he's a complete nightmare on offense. Post entries can be another 4 feet from the basket because his reach makes those shots effectively at the rim. Passes can go sky high with no fear of interception. Teammates can throw the ball at the basket and figure Edey can overmatch or slip through any boxout and put back the miss. His free throw shooting is up to 75% so you can't even hack him. Michigan beat Purdue last year by getting Edey in foul trouble, but Edey's slashed that foul rate to a miniscule 1.9%, allowing him to stay on the floor for 75% of Purdue's minutes.

Things Edey won't do: run the floor, or defend the perimeter. Teams that have had success against Purdue are able to get in transition—not easy since Edey doesn't give up many rebounds—and pull their center out. This is a game where the location of Hunter Dickinson's shots will matter a lot. If he can bash heads with Edey down low they might get a few calls. It's also a game for him to take four or five shots from outside the arc (and make at least a couple) so Edey has to come out to defend him. Say no to short elbow jumpers; not only will he have to arc those higher, but there's a zero percent chance of anything good coming from them (a foul, a rebound) if they don't go in. A longer elbow jumper may be okay if Reed is out there.

It'll be tough to play their two-bigs lineup however because sophomore PF Caleb Furst has developed into a fine scorer. His usage has been climbing over the course of the year as Furst has grown more comfortable—he used to go on three-game stretches with zero assists but hasn't had a game without one since Rutgers. The passing option might have been the last piece to Furst's game, since he can get to the rim on his own, and at 6'10" he's able to make those trips productive. Defenses often pay so much attention to boxing out Edey that they'll forget to put a body on Furst. And then the Reed part: Furst is absolutely capable of nailing a three—he's 39% for his career—but isn't usually looking to put one up. Synergy has him 8/17 on unguarded triples and 1/7 guarded this year. Furst can also soak up some time at center, so the 25% of time without Edey can be spent playing small ball instead of taking the full drop-off.

All that frontcourt ability means Matt Painter can afford to keep defensive gritstein small forward Ethan Morton on the court two-thirds of the time despite some terrible offense. Morton was a decent just-a-shooter off the bench last year but his shots aren't going in (unless they're free throws). And he knows it. He'll often pass up a shot that looked open-ish to reset the offense. That's not a terrible idea since the reset usually means "pass it to Edey." It's also allowed Morton to concentrate on defense. Opponents are scoring just 0.67 PPP against him. Jett was going to be a new level of difficulty for him, but Joey Baker won't be.

That leads us to the two freshman guards, who are out there belying the Seth 2023 Michigan Basketball Narrative that true freshman guards put a ceiling on your offense. Shooting guard Fletcher Loyer is the much taller, much makes-his-shotsier brother of former MSU bete noir Foster Loyer. There's a catch—when he ventures inside the arc Fletcher is hardly more effective than Foster, or wouldn't be in similar circumstances. The difference is Foster has managed to perfect the art of the lob to Edey off drives. Loyer's got a fair bit of athleticism to get into the lane, and Edey is Edey, so that trick has been devastatingly effective throughout the Big Ten season. Loyer's also a knockdown shooter from three—to the point where he'll just pull up if he's on a breakaway—which is how he managed to pass a pair of former starters to start from the get-go.

Point guard Braden Smith also shot past the veterans. Smith is better at getting to the basket, and uncanny at drawing contact when he arrives, which drags down his shooting percentage (just to 47%) but the tradeoff of a 90% shooter at the line. That free throw shooting translates to threes—he's at 45% this year—and that's all the more dangerous because those are going in at the same clip whether he's open (8/17), not open (8/17), or getting himself open (9/23). Smith even made a Zavier Simpson hookshot this year.

There's a weakness in both guards in that neither is a super athlete. That can be papered over on offense because of Edey, but it really shows on defense. They're both still pretty skinny, and their feet aren't so quick that they can afford to not take a stab towards the lane seriously. Smith especially seems susceptible to the old Michigan nemesis of guards who shoot over him. Even with Edey dunking on the Spartan centers like Michigan in CFB Risk, MSU was able to keep pace with Tyson Walker (30 points) stepbacks.

The bench:

Here we run into some familiar names from Purdue past.

Wing Mason Gillis started last year as an undersized four. He's one of those wide-shouldered wings, who can spot up on offense and grind away (read: flop) on defense. He'll take some minutes off of Furst because Gillis's offensive limitations are not such a big deal when Edey's the other forward on the floor. The two have built up quite the rapport, and Gillis will get you a few times a game on backcuts, OREBs, and open kickouts when your attention is on Edey. Unfortunately Gillis seems to have caught that particular Purdue forgot-how-to-shoot bug—his 3-point shooting is down 10 percentage points this year for no real good reason that stats can tell.

Junior guard Brandon Newman was the last Boiler to lose his stroke. In the process he went from an up-and-coming four-year starter for the first 23 games of his career to a progressively less effective off-the-bench chucker. Newman's usage is too high to be just-a-shooter, but his ventures inside the arc have led to a major spike in turnovers. His defense on the other hand has come a long way, and because he can guard 1s and 2s, he's still able to find plenty of minutes whenever a freshman at those spots needs a talking to.

The other guy they can turn to is transfer point guard David Jenkins, but having Jenkins run the offense has been an adventure on par with Jenkins's own travels. Jenkins has played a ton of basketball: two years starting for South Dakota State, one year at UNLV, his senior year at Utah, and now his COVID season in West Lafayette. At each stop his minutes and effectiveness took a steep drop—at this point he's a turnover machine shooting 40/25/64 on tiny usage.

Finally, yes, Painter does have a backup center, though 6'9" freshman Trey Kaufman-Renn is as different from Edey as one can be. I gave him the "switchable" icon because that's his style of play, but if I had to pick a player to comp to TKR it's Brandon Johns. His defense is erratic, and unlucky—opponents are making 50% of their threes on him—but there's an athlete in there, and he's quick enough to deter most shots at the rim. He'll take threes himself but often passes those up to drive without a plan, leading to these 1980s-inspired hook shots that go in about as often as they did for forwards in the '80s. They like to get him switched onto guards he can post up. His rebounding numbers aren't great, but you'll occasionally see him fly up in transition, which is a bit jarring when your center's spent most of his evening locked up with the behemoth on the other end and expecting to use the first 20 seconds of the next possession to catch his breath.

THE TEMPO FREE

As you can see Purdue is #1 in the country in every category of having a Zach Edey. They don't have to worry about missing shots because Edey will collect the board, or someone else will because you're freaking out about Edey. They don't have to worry about fouling when someone drives by their freshman guards because you still have to deal with Edey. They force a lot of turnovers because once you get to the rim and find a Zach Edey they're well-practiced at exploiting your natural inclination to get the ball the hell out of there. They have a ton of assists because if you crash on Edey everyone else is open, and what are you gonna do, not crash on Edey?

THE KEYS

Tie the center battle [Campredon]

Don't crash on Edey. The far and away second-best center in the Big Ten is Hunter Dickinson. You're not going to stop Edey, but if Hunter can plausibly turn Edey into…say…Hunter Dickinson without help, that makes the rest of the matchups a lot closer to "whose threes go in?"

Make your jumpers. Joey Baker has been a better spot-up shooter than we've seen this year. Dug and Bufkin are going to be able to get shots up against those guards. If there's life after Jett this year, it's going to have to come from those two guys.

Bring Edey out with you. Hunter Dickinson: Stretch Five? Painter will probably take his chances, but anything that pulls Edey out of the paint changes the whole complexion of Purdue's defense.

Good Denard Above willing, some fouls on Edey? The only Big Ten game he's committed more than two was the loss to Rutgers. It's also the only non-blowout (Minnesota) when he's played less than 30 minutes. And wouldn't-ya-know-it, Rutgers also happens to be the only other team in this league with a legitimate post presence, and the first Michigan opponent likely to leave their center all alone with Dickinson. Turn two more of those 8 blocks Edey gets per game into fouls, is all I'm saying.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Purdue by 3.