Takeaways Michigan loss

INDIANAPOLIS — Our post-game analysis following Purdue’s 86-68 loss to Michigan Friday night at the Big Ten Tournament.

ON PURDUE’S STATE PRE-NCAA TOURNAMENT

Purdue had a bad shooting night, one of its worst of the season, at a bad time, an outlier for one of the nation’s most efficient shooting teams.

That obviously can get any basketball team at any level beat on every night. Often, you’re only as good as the rate with which the ball passes through the net.

But it doesn’t have to get a team beat and that’s where Purdue’s bigger issue — and greatest threat heading into its highest-stakes games — exists.

This will not come as news to anyone who has watched the past few weeks, but Purdue is terribly vulnerable defensively, downright bad, at times. Its flashes of being pretty good lately have been real, but fleeting.

In the end, yes, Trey Kaufman-Renn could have gotten 40 tonight had he made shots he normally shoots 60-plus-percent on. And Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer aren’t going to go 5-of-24 between them very often. It was one of those nights, as they say.

But it was also another of those nights, the ones where an opponent shoots 65-plus-percent in the second half, basically gets whatever it wants just by being patient, prepared and active, and the result is a Purdue team that just can’t hide its limitations anymore the way it did in January. If it doesn’t seem like Matt Painter and his staff have answers now, it’s because the answers were exhausted during the front end of the Big Ten schedule, then figured out in time for the back end of the schedule. Purdue was never going to sustain January’s level of turnover generation, but this current version of the Boilermakers isn’t even close and that reality is leaving the offense with no margin for error. You don’t have to shoot 60 percent to win basketball games. What you do have to do most of the time is keep your opponent under 85. In the past 30 days alone Purdue’s seen 94, 88 and now 86 put up against it, in addition to absurd second-half shooting percentages and on down the line.

People have figured Purdue out, yes. They’ve started reversing the ball after Purdue leans its defense to one side. They’ve worked more to spread Purdue out, but also pushed the right buttons getting into the paint to trigger help then playing off it. Lately, it’s been death by a thousand cuts as both Illinois and Michigan thrived in slashing to the rim once putting Purdue in defensive rotations. Throw in the fact that scramble mode is razing Purdue’s rebounding infrastructure.

None of this stuff is going to go unnoticed by NCAA Tournament opponents, you know, and Purdue needs to be better enough on D to give itself the luxury to miss shots. Right now, it doesn’t feel like it can afford to.

Friday night was Purdue’s worst shooting game of the season, at 33.8 percent.

You know what it’s previous low was?

It was Oregon (33.9 percent)?

Remember who won that game?

Remember the first time Purdue and Michigan played, the way Purdue embarrassed the Wolverine guards with elite ball pressure. Contrast that to this game when Michigan basically got the ball wherever it wanted and committed just six turnovers.

Purdue’s done it before, so it stands to reason to think it can do it again. But it’s had six weeks to make that turn.

If not now, when? You’re at a point in the season now, too, where you’re laying groundwork for next year. Purdue is going to get transfer help this spring, but not a wholesale makeover. Next year’s defense starts now, too.

ON GICARRI HARRIS

What a gamer.

The Boilermaker freshman didn’t just stand out Friday because Purdue’s stars struggled; he stood out because he was legitimately good and because he competed start to finish.

Harris looks like he belongs out there next to some great upperclassmen, who he may join next season in being an outstanding Big Ten player and a real leader. There’s nothing that says leadership with him can’t start now. There’s immense promise there.

ONE POSITIVE HEADING INTO THE BIG DANCE

Harris, Myles Colvin and Camden Heide all have done positive things lately, shot-making being part of it.

None of them by themselves can transform Purdue defensively, nor will any of them grow to being 6-foot-11, 250 pounds, in the next week, but collectively, if there’s a solution to be found, they can be part of that.

Th shot-making is great — the Big Three need all the help they can get — but the substantive matters every bit as much. Energy, transition hustle, rebounding and ball pressure, that kind of stuff.