WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — When All-America center Zach Edey left for the NBA after sweeping the last two national player of the year awards, some wondered how Purdue would cope.
Turns out, the plan post-Edey doesn’t appear to have changed much. It still centers around a hefty dose of feeding the ball into the middle — as Alabama coach Nate Oats learned again the hard way Friday night.
Boilermakers forward Trey Kaufman-Renn made 12 of 23 shots, scored a career-high 26 points and grabbed eight rebounds as No. 13 Purdue handed No. 2 Alabama an 87-78 defeat that was eerily reminiscent of last season’s 92-86 loss to the Boilermakers in Toronto.
“They may be the best post-up program in the country,” Oats said. “They get guys that are good at it, they know how to feed it, they know how to run actions to get in there, they know how to run the actions for the shooters when it goes in there. We saw all that last year with Edey. We didn’t think we were going to have to worry as much about that this year, so we didn’t really plan on playing a double post.”
That turned out to be a mistake.
But who could blame Oats and Alabama (3-1) after watching tape of Purdue’s first three games?
The Boilermakers (4-0) were outrebounded in two of those games, were outscored 104-96 overall and looked as though they were struggling for solutions after losing 7-foot-4 starting center Daniel Jacobsen, a freshman, in their second game with what could be a season-ending broken leg.
And while Purdue still got outrebounded, 37-35, and outscored in the paint, 38-34, this game looked significantly more promising to Boilermakers fans who have grown accustomed to their team force-feeding the ball inside in recent years.
Kaufman-Renn was at his best during a fast start before he and center Will Berg both got into early foul trouble. That gave forward Caleb Furst and freshman center Raleigh Burgess a chance to make key contributions, and both did just enough to keep the pressure on Alabama’s interior defenders.
“I thought we could wear them down a little better and I think they closed the game better than us,” Oats said. “Kaufman-Renn, they kept going to him. I don’t think they expected 23 shots from him. We sure didn’t. But he got 26 points on 23 shots.”
The attention paid to Kaufman-Renn, like Edey, opened up the perimeter and Purdue took full advantage.
Boilermakers guards Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer each scored 17 points, and freshman guard C.J. Cox made three straight 3-pointers in a game-changing 13-0 run midway through the second half that turned a 65-59 deficit into a 72-65 lead. Purdue never trailed again.
And it was all by design.
“If they’re not doubling the post or trapping the ball, and they’re just going to play a drop defense, Trey is going to have more opportunities,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “If they’re going to play one-on-one in the post, Trey’s going to have more opportunities. So it’s not as much as what we want to do, it’s what they’re going to give us.”
Kaufman-Renn, the 2021 runner-up to Furst for Indiana’s coveted Mr. Basketball Award, certainly wasn’t complaining. But it could be the kind of performance that proves critical to Purdue the rest of this season.
“It wasn’t anything special, really,” Kaufman-Renn said. “It was just picking out whatever they were doing and finding the counter to it.”
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