Upon Further Review: Attacking traps, TKR usage and more from Purdue's win over Rutgers

Following each Purdue basketball game this season — or at least most — GoldandBlack.com will take a closer look back at some finer points in our long-standing Upon Further Review series. Today, the 18th-ranked Boilermakers’ 100-71 win over Rutgers.

PDF: Purdue-Rutgers statistics

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(Video clips via Peacock)

This is going to be pretty light because sometimes things really are as simple as one team blowing the other’s doors off.

ATTACKING VS BACKCOURT TRAPPING

Rutgers tried to take Purdue out of offensive rhythm by trapping in the backcourt and got maybe one turnover off it while the Boilermakers averaged a whopping 1.6 points per possession for the game. (Keep in mind, all stats are skewed by bulk garbage time.)

As the Knights tried to speed Purdue up, or slow Purdue down, however you want to look at it, and force mistakes, Braden Smith and Co. were pretty bold in forcing the issue. Purdue’s 11 fast-break points don’t tell the story of how many points it scored a defense that hadn’t quite gotten established yet.

This isn’t a fast break per se, but it’s more or less the same.

Purdue got into its transition ball screen game quickly over and over again.

Again these aren’t necessarily transition points, but they’re quick hitters and against and inattentive and immature defensive team, they were unstoppable. Rutgers is dropping its 5 man here to account for TKR, but Steve Pikiell teams of the past would have put Braden Smith in a headlock before allowing to come off a screen this clean.

Quick-hitter again …

This is more or less a transition post-up.

TKR PASSING

As it should have been Rutgers was wary of Trey Kaufman-Renn‘s short roll game, the portion of his scoring arsenal that does kind of set him apart.

Defending deep rolls has been something Rutgers has done well over the years, often just blasting the roll man semi-legally. Short rolls are tougher, especially for immobile big men.

As other team have done, Rutgers tried planting a help defender to meet TKR at the elbow, leaving someone open in the corner. These are reads Kaufman-Renn has to make, not predetermined sets. These are big-time plays by the passer.

Big Ten coaches are avid readers of this site so I’ll say it again: Guys, seriously, don’t help off Fletcher Loyer.

Something to point out here, too.

The most likely play here is for CJ Cox to “one-more” this to Gicarri Harris in the corner, but he instead attacks the middle of the floor after the gravitational pull of the short-roll action puts everybody on their heels. Cox has really developed his left hand by the way. He was righty dominant when the season began.

TKR UTILIZATION

Purdue seems to be popping TKR out more as opposed to planting him or rolling him into postups.

His sweet spot is becoming the elbow as much as it is the low block.

It does this to give him chance to back his way into postups and use a softer angle to breach the middle.

But it also sets up him to drive out of face-ups, which few bigger people are going to be all that comfortable doing.

This is how Purdue started the second half, getting the ball into the middle of this zone-ish defense.

The angle of these actions are really important, but it turns the defender’s shoulders in a way that creates leverage for TKR to turn and go.

MISC

• This Odd Couple ball-screen pairing Purdue has been using all season with Smith and TKR is fun.

Here’s the rare pick-and-pop three from a sub-6-foot point guard with the center on the assist.

• Let me just say: This was pretty well officiated, IMO, at least by Big Ten standards. The fouls they called on Purdue were fouls and the free throw disparity (21-9) was, to be brutally honest, attributable to Rutgers not defending hard enough to foul.

Real time I thought Purdue caught a huge break here, because there was modest contact on Ace Bailey on his way down. Not sure. Maybe if this was a road game or if Michigan was involved this would drawn a soft call, but it was a big swing that started here.

• Rutgers had just gotten Purdue on this play. Raleigh Burgess comes in, sniffs it right out, adjusts his drop and shuts it down.