As Purdue visits SoCal, five critical elements

As No. 13 Purdue heads to San Diego this week as King of the MTE — it’s won premier events each of the past three seasons — it looks to keep its run of Thanksgiving Week dominance going.

Now, it’s the Rady Children’s Invitational, where Purdue will meet fellow Final Four-er N.C. State, then either No. 23 Ole Miss or emergent BYU.

This isn’t the same caliber of field as the high-end events of recent years, but it’ll be a challenge for the Boilermakers, beginning a stretch of six major games in a row, including the two-game start of Big Ten play.

As the Boilermakers move into this daunting stretch, here are five elements, beyond the obvious, that may loom especially large.

PURDUE OFFENSIVE REBOUNDING

Rebounding, period, is going to be an enormous priority for Purdue all season, particularly when it plays “smaller” and has to sort of over-achieve on the glass.

But offensive rebounding has always been a big deal at Purdue, a key to its winning formula offensively for years now. Currently, Purdue is 266th nationally in offensive rebounding percentage, though it is early enough still for such metrics to not carry a ton of weight. It also bears mentioning, too, that Purdue has been efficient enough on offense — shootIng a whopping 51 percent overall — to not have as many second-chance opportunities as it would otherwise.

But as competition gets better, so does defense. And as seasons get deeper, so does scouting. In those games that may have to be won ugly, possessions matter and cheap scoring can decide games.

Purdue would love to get more garbage points off the offensive glass, in transition, or whatever.

HEIDE AND COLVIN FROM THREE

With wings Camden Heide and Myles Colvin now flanking Trey Kaufman-Renn in the starting five, Purdue’s alpha post scorer is now bracketed by two shooters in the frontcourt, and four in total.

But it’s Heide and or Colvin who’d be the players most likely to see their defenders leaning inside at times, whether to help on Kaufman-Renn in the paint, or to follow him diving in pick-and-roll.

They are going to get looks.

Currently, Heide is shooting 62 percent. That’s likely not sustainable, but anything in the vicinity of 40 will suffice. Colvin’s at 43 percent. That very well might endure.

But the two wings’ ability to make threes in the halfcourt is pivotal to Purdue’s spacing and if they can do it in transition here and there, there’s another pressure point they can apply.

TKR AT THE STRIPE

Kaufman-Renn won’t get fouled as much as Zach Edey did, but thus far, it’s not been far off. That means a lot of free throws for him, but also a lot of one-and-ones for him.

He has historically been up and down at the line, currently at 63 percent, and his opportunities are the higher-stakes variety, because missed one-and-ones are no different than turnovers and split or missed pairs from post scorers are those sometimes deflating situations where a team does everything right offensively, then comes away with minimal or no gain.

CALEB FURST AT THE BASKET

Purdue is going to need Caleb Furst‘s best a lot this season, as he now may be positioned to be the Boilermakers’ most important frontcourt reserve as its No. 2 center. It sure looked that way against Marshall, at least. There may be games where Will Berg‘s size is needed more than others, and Raleigh Burgess‘ progress is certainly worth keeping in mind, but Furst is clearly an every-game guy.

That’ll mean Purdue will need him to rebound and be good on the perimeter defensively — his strength, arguably — but his presence at the basket has to be impactful.

That means cashing in on the dunks and layups Braden Smith will get him, and continuing to draw fouls. But also on defense: He’s not going to be much of a vertical shot-blocker, but rim protection and shot-blocking aren’t necessarily the same thing. There are going to be centers he faces who are bigger and stronger that’ll he’ll have to match from a physicality standpoint.

BRADEN SMITH’S JUMPER

It’s bad business for defenses to let Purdue’s point guard come off ball screens and shoot, but his trademark quick-trigger threes haven’t been falling lately. He was 0-for-4 against Alabama’s drop defense, then all three of his triples at Marquette came off the catch.

Marshall, that game didn’t matter, and Smith barely tried to score, but those other two games are the level Purdue will be playing more often than not from here on out.

There are no red flags here whatsoever, but it’s now the part of the season where when an opponent plays in a way that allows Smith to score, Purdue needs him to blow that team up. The Creighton exhibition was a great example.