Takeaways Illinois loss

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Our post-game analysis following Purdue’s 88-80 loss at Illinois Friday night at the State Farm Center.

DEFENSIVE SLIPPAGE RESURFACES

The most disappointing part of this end-of-season stretch has clearly been the inconsistency defensively.

After a great January — shockingly great, actually — Purdue lost its way during the losing streak, seemingly at random. The UCLA and Rutgers games were varying degrees of fine and that seemed like a step in the right direction toward Purdue getting back to being good enough on D.

The bottom dropped out again Friday, as the Boilermakers allowed 88 points despite taking away Illinois’ strength (offensive rebounding) and while not compromising its defense by turning the ball over.

This is going to end Purdue’s season if it’s not careful.

Purdue has lost five of its past seven games and so often during that time, including the win over UCLA, Purdue has built hearty leads only to see the opponent erase them in the blink of an eye.

It’s those moments — up 10 at Illinois with 11:34 to play, for example — when Purdue needs to be its sharpest on defense, but that’s when things are dulling, and it’s cost the Boilermakers dearly.

The extremes Purdue has endured here have been dizzying.

THE FOUL ISSUE

For years, Purdue enjoyed a hidden baseline of productivity in the foul column, both the toll Zach Edey and the bigs who came before him took on opponents’ ranks via foul trouble, but also the bonus and all the cheap, easy points that came from it.

Now, inexplicably, it’s just completely flipped on Purdue.

“Inexplicably” is too strong a word, because Purdue does have vulnerabilities containing the dribble and rebounding that align with committing, or being called for, fouls. But even with that said, it’s not that bad. And even if it was, that’s only half the equation. Purdue itself isn’t getting to the bonus very often, which is hard to explain given Trey Kaufman-Renn‘s physicality on the interior, Braden Smith attacking the basket, etc.

And then to see some of the fouls key players are fouling out on — Camden Heide tonight, Caleb Furst and Kaufman-Renn at Michigan — and it makes this issue even more bizarre. There’s no grand conspiracy to undermine Purdue here, but the numbers are what they are. Purdue has been called for an average of 16.9 fouls per Big Ten game, exact same as opponents. Does that make sense for a team that blew a bunch of teams out in January? Or, again, has offensive players compatible with drawing fouls? Opponents have shot two dozen more free throws than Purdue in Big Ten play.

They say it’s life on the road but has Purdue had games at home like the ones it’s endured away from home? For this team, the bonus isn’t a glass ceiling, it’s a cement wall.

Fouls don’t have to be even, but for an Illinois team that shot 30 threes to draw 21 fouls and shoot twice as many free throws vs. a Purdue team that played through a post scorer who took 23 shots, that doesn’t compute.

But it’s nothing new, as Purdue has repeatedly gotten killed by the bonus at the end of these games.

This wasn’t unlike the game at Michigan, when the Wolverines got four free throws in the final two minutes without having to run offense at all because Purdue committed touch fouls at the other end of the floor.

Purdue has enough defensive concerns right now without having to basically stand down on defense at times, because of the impact of foul trouble — Trey Kaufman-Renn and a thin frontcourt, namely — and the perils of the bonus.

Defense and rebounding for Purdue at the end of these games is like a game of “Operation.” Anything even remotely outside the lines sets off the buzzer.

It just has to be better at not fouling, right? And just hope this stuff somehow evens out.

That’ll be the hope, because this is a huge problem for Purdue.

ON TREY KAUFMAN-RENN

Look, he can’t play 40 minutes. Very few frontcourt players can. But the ramifications of him coming out were again pretty apparent at Illinois.

In the first half, he came out and Braden Smith then turned the ball over on back-to-back possessions dribbling deep into Illinois’ defense, first trying to pass in to freshman Raleigh Burgess, then traveling after being stood up. Smith does tend to become über-aggressive in such moments, which has hit big a bunch of times, but can also cut both ways. In the second half, TKR came out and Purdue committed two turnovers in three trips with Burgess again on the floor, the first coming with Gicarri Harris dribbling deep into Illinois’ defense. The Burgess turnover in transition that followed had nothing to do with personnel.

But that’s two sets of two turnovers bunched close together. That may not sound like all that much but it was half Purdue’s turnovers for the whole game in just those two sequences, those possessions — or three of the four, at least — ending badly after there was no first option to throw the ball inside to or get Kaufman-Renn in a ball screen with Smith. That’s where things start for Purdue more often than not.

It’s not exactly earth-shattering news that a team’s leading scorer being out of the game changes things, but Kaufman-Renn isn’t just Purdue’s offense’s leading scorer, he’s its destination, and that makes every stretch Purdue plays without him critical in the big pictures of games. Opponents’ runs have started on more than one occasion with TKR taking a seat, not just because of how good he is, but because Purdue is thin in its frontcourt. Again, maybe Daniel Jacobsen could have helped there, but it’s a big “maybe” and a moot point.