SAN JOSE, CA — P.J. Thompson grabbed his ever-present dry erase board, and Purdue men’s basketball players instinctively huddled around him in front of the bench.
The Boilermakers were about to inbound the ball with 11.9 seconds remaining in a West Region semifinal against Texas. As Thompson ran through the play – one he’d called hundreds of times before, including earlier in the game – Matt Painter watched over his former point guard’s shoulder.
Watching that huddle reminded me of a preseason conversation with Painter from November. A survey of other coaches had named Painter the best Xs and Os coach in the country. He agreed the best in the country was on Purdue’s staff, but disagreed it was him.
So if the national championship game comes down to one play, I asked, is assistant coach Thompson calling it?
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“Amen,” Painter said.
100%?
“Amen.”
Purdue finished the night with the highest adjusted offensive efficiency score in the nation across multiple sites. Ken Pomeroy’s site, with data dating back to 1997, has never recorded a season-ending AOE score higher than the Boilers’ 134.0. They have traded off with Big Ten rival Illinois for that distinction most of the season.
“Coach Paint said we’re going to be the best offensive team in the country, and I agreed with him,” Thompson said. “We were open with our guys about it, and then we focused on the details that were necessary to get here. We didn’t shy away from it. We felt like we needed to be, and we felt we had the capability to be.”
Purdue likely needs to be every ounce of that offensive heavyweight to beat Arizona on Saturday night. The Wildcats have an elite offense, too. In Thursday’s 109-88 shellacking of 4-seed Arkansas, they became the first team with six players scoring 14 points or more in an NCAA Tournament game.
That’s a challenge for the Boilermakers’ improved defense and essential rebounding, for sure. It also puts this offense under scrutiny to prove it can go toe-to-toe with another scoring machine and come out on top.
Purdue has been in this position before, though. Against Houston in last year’s Sweet Sixteen, it went strength on -strength against a defense designed to shut it down before falling in the final seconds. Two weeks ago in the Big Ten Tournament championship game in Chicago, it knocked the best team in the league back on its heels for a decisive stretch of the second half.
Inside that sideline session with Thompson, you can see the elements Purdue needs to summon another season-changing performance.
Purdue will put the ball in Braden Smith’s hands as long as it can
Thompson did not draw up an exotic new play call — some flash of genius he’d been saving for a special moment.
He first asked assistant coach Brandon Brantley what personnel the Longhorns had in the game. Brantley let him know Texas coach Sean Miller had pulled 7-foot center Matas Voiekataitis out of the game. With him in the game and playing drop coverage under the basket, Thompson might have set up a ball screen, potentially creating a numbers mismatch if the big man attacked it aggressively.
Instead, Thompson anticipated Texas staying in a switching defensive alignment. Only a minute or so earlier, after Miller put 6-8 forward Nic Codie on Smith, the point guard drove right past him for a layup.”
I think people try to do too much at the end of games,” Thompson said. “We wanted to do something we’ve run before. It’s getting our best player in space and it’s forcing the defense to make a decision.”
So much of what Purdue does comes back to that premise — put the ball in Smith’s hands and trust his instincts and ability to read defenses.
This came up one year ago when Purdue encountered another 1 seed — Houston — in a Sweet 16 game at Lucas Oil Stadium. Thompson had great respect for the Cougars’ defensive acumen, including the best ball screen coverages he’d ever seen. But he had, in his opinion, the best two-man game in the sport at his disposal in Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn.
So, bucking conventional wisdom, Purdue stayed heavy on ball screens in that matchup. Smith went for 15 assists that day, while Kaufman-Renn and Fletcher Loyer combined for 30 points. Houston escaped with a 62-60 victory, with Purdue making only 7 of 22 from 3-point range. The shots did not fall, but the Boilers often got the shots they wanted.
Thompson said the variety of coverages this core group of players has seen over four years means they have contingency plans for every look. When they approach with the right frame of mind and play with discipline and attention to detail, good things are bond to happen.
The players say their mindset comes from Painter’s investment in Thompson, and the proven track record over the past three seasons.
“It’s an every day thing,” Loyer said last month. “He’s always teaching. If he’s talking to Oscar (Cluff, Purdue’s center), I can always learn something. If he’s talking to (walk on guard) Aaron Fine I can always learn something.
“He’s more of a teacher than a coach. It’s been asweoms to learn for four years from such a wise guy.”
Purdue’s shooters impact defenses even when shots aren’t falling
After the players heard Thompson’s instructions and dispersed back onto the court, Thompson yelled the length of the court.
“B!” he shouted to point guard Braden Smith. “Take your time.”
Thompson wanted to make sure Smith did not get sped up by adrenaline and, regardless of the result of the play, leave Texas too much time on the clock to get a better shot off.
The play also needed to be run at a specific pace for each element to come into place. He had Jack Benter handle the inbounds pass so Trey Kaufman-Renn could set up around the basket. Texas did not guard the inbound, so after Benter passed to Smith, he needed time to run the length of the floor and set up in position.
“Timing is everything in those situations,” Thompson said.
This turned out to be essential. When Smith made his cut against Chendall Weaver and headed up the right seam, the rest of the Longhorns stayed home on Purdue’s shooters – Benter (40.9%), C.J. Cox (37.4%) and Loyer, at 43.5% for the season but shooting 3s better than any player in the country for about six weeks now.
Loyer was the only Boiler making a 3 that night – literally. He went 4 for 8, and his teammates went 0 for 12. Yet due to the shooting talent scattered around the floor – and the threat of a spray-out 3 – no one helped over to impede Smith or put another body on Kaufman-Renn.
Only one this season – in wins over Oregon and Nebraska on Feb. 7-10 – has Purdue shot below 30% from 3 in consecutive games. On the other six occasions in which it shot under 33% for one night, it came back to shoot a collective 45.5% the next.
“We always teach our guys if we do our job, if we’re detailed, if we’re disciplined, if we have great pace, then we typically get the shot we want,” Thompson said. “Because of our skill, when we get the shots we want, we normally feel good about it.”
Can Purdue’s offensive sophistication top Arizona’s versatile defense?
Back when Robbie Hummel played, Purdue was one of several offenses running the motion offense concepts made famous in the state by IU coach Bob Knight. Painter’s Boilermakers of that era had a greater defensive reputation.
In the middle of an interview about Purdue’s offensive evolution at Big Ten Media Days last fall, Painter happened to walk by.
“You don’t run Auburn anymore?” Hummel asked.
“No.”
“Butler?”
“We run elements of it, but it’s not the same,” Painter said.
“Do you run cut through?”
“Braden,” Painter said, nodding when Hummel asked if Smith’s ball screen actions ruined one of his favorite plays from back in the day.
“RIP to cut through,” Hummel said.
Hummel sees almost no connection between what he ran as a player and the deep, sophisticated offense the Boilers run now.
“The evolution from what he knew as a player to what he knew as young coach to now – even if he’s just taking from Europe, NBA, other college programs – he’s put together a really good mixture,” Hummel said. “He’s not afraid to try different things.”
Which is why, in a profession full of people who typically are not shy about their control freak tendencies, Painter put the season in the hands of another coach – and one of his youngest assistants.
When Thompson played for Purdue a decade ago, Painter split the game prep duties between two assistants – offensive-minded Greg Gary and defensive-minded Jack Owens. Eventually, he evolved to a more football-like format. His dedicated offensive coordinator could focus on that alone.
Painter also recognized it used to throw Gary off his “flow” when he chimed in too much with his own offensive thoughts. The evolution of the staff continued until after the 2023 season and the first-round upset loss to 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson. He pulled the trigger and turned the offense over to Thompson entirely.
“A lot of people won’t disconnect from their ego, and it bothers them how it looks,” Painter told IndyStar in November. “It doesn’t bother me how it looks. I’m paid to make decisions that put Purdue in the best possible situation, and I have to keep doing that.
“Part of that is checking my ego and saying, ‘OK, they voted you the best Xs and Os coach. Well, I don’t believe that I am. I believe he is.’ And if I believed me calling plays was better for us than him, then I would call them.”
Call that a sacrifice if you want. A few of Painter’s players definitely made some in order to maximize this offense’s potency.
Put Kaufman-Renn at the top of that list. He scored 20.1 points per game last season while he and Smith accounted for 46.4% of the offense with their pick-and-roll interchange. This season, they’ve scored only 33.9% of the team’s points. The offense is more diverse – less reliant on getting the ball to the rim and kicking out for 3s, more collective in its shot selection and sources.
Diversity will be key Saturday against one of the nation’s elite defenses.
Arizona makes perimeter shooting difficult, led by Jaden Bradley’s on-ball intensity. Only nine major conference teams allow a lower 3-point percentage than Tommy Lloyd’s team.
The Wildcats also make interior scoring a miserable enterprise. Motiejus Krivas creates a 7-2 wall inside. Then versatile players such as 6-8 reserve Tobe Awake start mixing up coverages.
On the other side, though, Arizona must use a short turnaround to game plan for a Purdue offense known for its multitude of sets.
“I think it makes it really difficult for people to scout everything,” Smith said. “They’ve just kind of got to scout the simple actions like a ball screen – how you’re going to cover that. How you’re going to cover a dribble handoff. How you’re gonna cover a Butler action. How you’re gonna cover post-ups.
“But we just have so many different actions to get to that point. It’s really just teams are kind of at our mercy, and I’ve kind of always felt that way.”
Smith trusts Thompson “with everything.” So does Painter. Thompson believes in the system. Leading every country in those offensive metrics looks good on paper. The Boilermakers only care if it makes them one of the four teams running offense in Lucas Oil Stadium next week.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Purdue basketball’s offensive transformation brought historic efficiency, checked egos
Reporting by Nathan Baird, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
