By: Chris Liow | December 22nd |

Keys to the Game

Purdue looks to build on the momentum of 3 straight victories including wins over #20 Ohio St. and in-state rivals Notre Dame as they visit Iowa City looking to upset #4 Iowa. Meanwhile, the Hawkeyes will be looking to rebound from their loss against the top-ranked Gonzaga and to open up conference play strong to snap a streak of 4 consecutive seasons of losing conference openers. There’s also a bit of a revenge narrative for coach Fran McCaffery and an Iowa squad that returns a vast majority of its key players from last year where they fell twice to Purdue including being on the wrong end of a 36-point blowout at Mackey. This will undoubtedly be the toughest test early for a young Boilermakers team that has already had its share of highs and lows just 8 games into the season. While the Boilers return several key members from last year’s squad, the offensively-elite Iowa squad will look to challenge a Purdue defense that lost its two best defenders to the transfer portal and has been decent but inconsistent against quality competition so far. In advance of this matchup, here are my thoughts as far as the key areas Purdue needs to perform in to pull out a win and open up conference play at a very strong 2-0 with two ranked wins.

Solid Play from the 4 Position

It felt like Purdue had Iowa’s number last year and Evan Boudreaux had a big part in that. In the two times the teams squared up, the graduate transfer Senior averaged 16 points on 11/21 shooting from the floor and 6/10 from 3. He also averaged 11 rebounds with a monster 14 rebound outing in the first matchup that included an insane 7 offensive rebounds. Examining the rest of the stat sheet shows 5 assists, 2 steals, and a block to 4 fouls, and only ONE turnover between both games. To further emphasize how impressive Boudreaux’s performances were against Iowa, let’s compare these averages to his season’s.

Boudreaux | PTS | FG%/3P% | Rbs (OREB) | AST | BLK | TO’s | Mins

VS Iowa | 16 pts | 52.4%/60% | 11 (4) | 2.5 ast | 0.5 blk | 0.5 to’s | 29.5 mins

Season | 5.4 pts | 39.7%/30.6% | 4.6 (1.6) | 0.7 ast | 0.1 blk | 0.7 to’s | 17 mins

As impressive as his outings were, you may be wondering why I am focusing on a player who is no longer on Purdue’s roster in advance of a matchup tonight. To put it simply, it’s because I see a lot of the same opportunities at the 4 spot this year when reviewing the film on Iowa and looking at their roster while looking back at our own. As stated earlier, this is an Iowa team that brings back a ton of key players. Much like last year, Iowa has opted (so far) to feature a lineup that surrounds star Luka Garza with 4 versatile guards that are capable of threatening from deep. The Hawkeyes relied primarily on an experienced big in Ryan Kreiner to fill in the ~8 minutes/game Garza wasn’t on the floor last season as well as to provide size and depth in matchups that called for a larger lineup. Iowa struggled mightily to contain Boudreaux while also keeping tabs on Trevion Williams or the 7’3” Haarms. Their typical ‘smaller’ lineup couldn’t keep Boudreaux off the glass or take advantage on the other end of the floor. The 6’10 Kreiner (who averaged 21 minutes in these two games) couldn’t hang with Williams or Haarms defensively, being on the wrong end of a few and-1 calls trying to guard either of them 1-on-1, and didn’t do that much better in keeping Boudreaux off the offensive glass.

This year is looking like more of the same as they roll out with virtually the same exact starting lineup as last year. The Hawkeyes welcome back Senior guard Jordan Bohanon who returns from season-ending hip surgery that cut his last season to only 10 games (missed both of the matchups vs. Purdue) while his replacement last year in Joe Toussaint now comes off the bench leading the non-starting guards in minutes and points. In place of Kreiner is a bit of committee featuring freshmen Keegan Murray and Patrick McCaffery while being headed by 6’11” Sophomore Jack Nunge. I expect Painter to continue rolling out with a starting lineup that slots Mason Gillis alongside Trevion Williams in the frontcourt with Aaron Wheeler playing anywhere between 16-24 minutes whenever Gillis isn’t on the floor. Both Gillis and Wheeler will be dangerous in crashing the glass against Iowa’s smaller lineup and I like their odds against the big men coming off the bench for Iowa. Nunge is more versatile than Kreiner and a notable threat on the offensive end, averaging double-figure points and nearly 4 offensive rebounds in under 20 minutes of action per game this year. That said, I’ll take our guys over the Freshmen with limited experiences against strong opponents and think that our centers will force their share of double teams in the paint to open up the weak side for easy looks and prime offensive rebounding position. 

In my opinion, the big question mark this game is whether or not the Boilers can handle the smaller Hawkeyes lineup on defense. Last year, we were able to bring the double team on Garza and rotate adequately across the board to prevent many wide-open looks elsewhere. A big key to our success was not only solid play by Boudreaux but a lineup that featured elite defender Nojel Eastern, senior transfer Jahaad Proctor who rarely lapsed on defense, and a legit rim protector in Haarms to shore up instances of dribble penetration. The Miami and Notre Dame games exposed some serious holes in our perimeter defense with Miami seemingly driving at will in the 2nd half and Notre Dame shooting 39% from behind the arc en route to sinking 16 3’s despite missing several wide-open looks. In short, it is absolutely crucial that the Boilermakers put up a strong, disciplined performance defensively as Iowa is really the first team we have faced that can beat us with both the 3 point shot and dribble-drive if our rotations off double teams in the post and general perimeter defense are lacking.

Contain Their Offense

In case it wasn’t plainly obvious that this Iowa team is an offensive juggernaut, here are some stats. According to KenPom, Iowa leads D1 in adjusted offensive efficiency so far this season averaging 119.5 points per 100 possessions. Their 98.7 points/game and 22.9 assists/game are good for 2nd and 1st respectively in the league, and their FG% of 50.3% is good for top ~30 overall and fringe top 10 when only considering major conference schools. To round out this stellar resume, the Hawkeyes also shoot a very respectable 37.4% from deep even after a cold 4-for-22 performance in their last match against Gonzaga. Oh, I also forgot to mention their insanely low turnover rate, coughing the ball up on just 12.7% of offensive possessions (4th best in D1). A big part of this stems from Luka Garza and what he contributes himself and indirectly by freeing up his teammates. 

At the time of writing this, I am seeing a few outlets that are covering this game assert that one of the important ‘keys’ to a Purdue victory is being able to find an answer to Garza. Overall, this is a take I actually disagree with. In his two games this year against ranked opponents, Garza has averaged 23 points/game on 50% shooting overall. When examining his performance in the two quality Purdue wins last year, we see the big man put up 26 points both times on a combined 55.9% from the floor whereas the rest of his team shot under 33%. In summary, the longer and more experienced frontcourts of UNC and Gonzaga couldn’t effectively shut down Garza and a Purdue team with notably better interior (and overall for that matter) defense couldn’t do it either last year. Looking at the 3 Iowa losses in these 4 games, the common denominator has been limiting the rest of the team. As stated before, Iowa shot a paltry 18.2% (4/22) from behind the arc as a team against Gonzaga. I already mentioned how the team outside of Garza shot <33% from the floor in the two losses against Purdue last season, but I’ll tack on that the Hawkeyes only managed to convert on ~25% of their shots from deep in those games as well (3-9 for Garza). While the clear Big 10 PoTY candidate and arguable frontrunner for national PoTY should merit plenty of attention, it’s clear to me that the key to victory here is containing everyone in an Iowa jersey whose name isn’t Luka Garza. 

This will be easier said than done of course. In the loss to the #1 Zags, a decent chunk of Iowa’s cold shooting from 3 came off of quality looks. When you consider the fact that they only shot 14-26 from the line as a team, it feels like the shooting woes this game stemmed more from the Hawkeyes having an ‘off night’ as opposed to anything Gonzaga did defensively. Last year, we had the benefit of two of the best defenders in the conference in Nojel Eastern and Matt Haarms to anchor a Boilermaker squad that had plenty of experienced upperclassmen that were generally sound and mistake-averse defensively. Eastern was primarily tasked with guarding second-leading scorer Joe Wieskamp. Wieskamp, who averaged 14 points/game his Sophomore year, was held to just 8 and 10 points in the two losses against the Boilers with just 1-7 shooting from behind the arc and 5 turnovers compared to his season average of 1.6. Wieskamp is once again the second option behind Garza, averaging 15.9 points on a very efficient 54.2% from the floor and 46.9% from 3. We do not have a Nojel Eastern to clamp down on him this time around and to be honest... we don’t really have a clear matchup for him that doesn’t pose its own set of issues. As a 6-6, 220 guard who has averaged over 6 boards a game and is more than capable of crashing the lane for offensive rebounds, I don’t see any of our guards outside of Stefanovic being ideal. Doing this likely means putting Gillis against a much faster guard at several points of the game, and I don’t love the idea of Gillis or Wheeler being tasked with guarding Wieskamp directly for obvious reasons. Outside of this particular assignment, Iowa still features several guards that are more than capable of knocking down an open shot. C.J. Fredrick is shooting 52.2% from deep this year, Joe Toussaint and Connor McCaffery are not volume shooters from 3 but are more than capable of sinking shots in catch-and-shoot situations, and senior Jordan Bohannon is far better from behind the arc than his current 28.3% from that range on the season would indicate. Oh, did I mention Garza is coming in shooting 61.9% here on 3 attempts per game? This will be a game that has a lot of similarities to Notre Dame in that the Hawkeyes will be able to spread the floor and put as many as 5 guys on the floor that can threaten from 3-point range. The difference here is that Iowa also brings nearly 30 points a game in the form of the best offensive center in the NCAA to provide a complimentary interior threat. Iowa will be a daunting challenge for the young Boilermakers squad on defense to say the very least. While it is clear that this will have to be a team-wide effort, I would lean on our Juniors to provide high quality, fundamentally-sound defense and look for high energy, physical play in bursts while limiting turnovers and silly fouls from our younger guys coming off the bench.

Come out Swinging & Crash the Glass

Purdue wasn’t (and still isn’t) a team known for pushing the ball and leaning heavily on a fastbreak offense last year. We were and are a team that favors setting up different variations of Painter’s primary “4 out, 1 in” motion offense and working to find quality shots. We may typically rank near the bottom in offensive pace, but this doesn’t mean that we are a team that doesn’t play heavily on momentum. In the first meeting last season against then-ranked #17 Iowa, Purdue went from surrendering a Garza jumper on the first possession to score 17 unanswered points before coach Fran McCaffery opted to burn a much-needed timeout just 4 minutes into the game. His Iowa squad gradually recovered but was never really close after this initial run, going on to finish the half down 25 and eventually lose by 36. Playing at a packed Mackey at a time where an inconsistent Purdue squad desperately needed this ranked win to avoid falling out of relevance halfway through the year definitely helped as the Boilers came out of the gates sprinting and giving it 110%. The 17-0 run over roughly three and a half minutes of play saw consecutive high-effort steals from big men Boudreaux and Williams and several offensive rebounds each from Eastern and Boudreaux that more or less resulted entirely from hustle and effort. 

Perhaps the most discouraging moments during this early run for Iowa and their fans was when Trevion Williams missed an and-1 free throw after a made layup only to have Eastern snag the rebound over the undersized guard trying to box him out. Eric Hunter Jr. would proceed to miss the kick-out 3, and several Purdue players would scramble and end up on the ground to recover the miss. A Sasha 3 would also miss a short while later, and Eastern would again sprint for the basket and this time snag the rebound in stride, smoothly out letting to Hunter again on a kick out. This time Hunter would sink the 3 to make the lead 10-2, capping off what ended up being a 5 point play that saw 3 Purdue offensive rebounds. The two very next Purdue possessions saw a Boudreaux put back on a missed 3-pointer and then Eastern snagging yet another offensive rebound on a missed 3 and immediately finding an open teammate on the wing for another try (this time Stefanovic, who would bury it as the crowd went absolutely wild). The final headlines for this game were all variations of “Boilermakers go hot from 3 in the win!”, but I felt the untold story was the insane level of energy we came out with to arguably put the game out of reach mentally in mere minutes. In the aforementioned stretch, Purdue technically missed 6 out of 8 attempts from 3 but walked away with points on every possession because of their offensive rebounding and hustle. 

While our 2020-2021 squad has had its share of lapses on both ends of the court, we have certainly not been lacking in spirit with a ton of high effort plays from all our guys resulting in many instances of huge momentum swings in our favor. Going on the road to play in Iowa City instead of Mackey isn’t ideal, but the lack of crowd should hopefully mitigate the normal home-court advantage. An Iowa squad that returns a vast majority of its key players from last year will likely come out hungry looking for revenge, so it is important that the Boilers rival it with their own energy coming out of the gates. The recent win over Notre Dame gives me a lot of confidence that this team can weather rallies from opponents and answer with runs of their own and an early lead on this tough Iowa team would put us in a great spot.      

Avoid Unforced Turnovers

I’ve spent enough time talking about the past 3 topics, so I’ll try to keep this last one brief. If the Purdue squad that only turned it over 6 times against Notre Dame shows up, we’ll probably win. If the version that turned it over 22 times against Clemson, 19 times against Indiana St., and 14 times against Miami (with many of them being at key moments in the 2nd half collapse) shows up instead, the question will be not if we lose but how much we lose by. The good news is that Iowa isn’t a team that’s known for defensive prowess. They do a phenomenal job taking care of the ball themselves and key piece Luka Garza is very good at avoiding fouling for how much he is on the floor. Their guards may not be the ball-hawks of Clemson, but they’re more capable and aggressive than Notre Dames’. The key here will be to have us continue to run the ball through Juniors Eric Hunter and Sasha Stefanovic and lean on Trevion Williams to both produce points himself or open up the floor for everyone else. Hunter in particular seems to have rebounded from some rust stemming from missed time due to an early injury while Stefanovic continues to show the same sound, fundamental play with a knack for great lob passes and pick-and-roll feeds that his predecessors Mathias and Cline were known for as well. Purdue needs to keep it simple and not beat themselves in a matchup against a team that is as good as any at making use of any extra/free possessions we hand them.

As always, Boiler Up! Hammer Down! Hail Purdue!