Upon Further Review: Offensive chess matches, defensive details and more from Purdue's win over McNeese

PROVIDENCE — 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 Boilermakers’ 76-62 win over McNeese State Saturday in the NCAA Tournament.

PDF: Purdue-McNeese stats

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(Video clips via CBS)

THE OFFENSIVE CHESS MATCH IN THREE ACTS

So this is Purdue’s first possession. You see Purdue run CJ Cox up through the lane to create north-south pressure on the defense and entangle any help defender McNeese might plan on planting in the lane vs. Trey Kaufman-Renn. The clear-out creates this easy bucket against a fronting defender.

This is what they’d call a sacrificial cut by Fletcher Loyer on the baseline to clear out the area around the rim.

Later, McNeese began holding its “low man” to shadow TKR and Purdue slowed down a bit on the scoreboard. Then, CJ Cox made this unguarded three.

This was a huge shot on a few levels.

The very next possession, because of that Cox three moments earlier, McNeese has been spooked out of anchoring its low man behind TKR and that low man is not leaving Cox.

OFFENSIVE EXECUTION

Excellent execution here on this set to get Fletcher Loyer a three (or an entry if TKR wasn’t put in a full nelson). Loyer’s defender is McNeese’s low man here and Purdue is just batting him around like a cat toy with all this movement before finally walling him off with Caleb Furst‘s screen.

The Braden Smith-TKR pick-and-roll gave McNeese a lot of problems even though TKR barely scored off it, and Purdue weaponized it more to get shots for other people.

You see here that when the initial action begins, McNeese drops off Gicarri Harris to take the roll and Smith makes the “simple play.”

When you hear Painter talk about Kaufman-Renn pausing on his roll to survey things, this is what he means. Taking a moment to read and react. This looks like a planned-out play as Purdue knows McNeese is going to pinch down from the wing. If it didn’t, though, TKR would have had the leeway to dribble to the hoop.

Pristine zone offense here by Purdue as McNeese puts two guys on Smith.

You have probably noticed Purdue using Braden Smith more off the ball to A) alleviate some burden from him and B) leverage his ability as a catch-and-shoot scorer and floor-spacer. Normally that means Cox or Harris initiating the offense, but here Smith is playing off this two-man game Purdue sets up for Loyer and TKR.

More Loyer. Look what one shot fake can do here, especially against zone.

Lastly, the good old inverted pick-and-roll works every time.

Last thing: The slap on the arm Matt Painter gives P.J. Thompson here after this switch-busting dummy-pick-and-roll action gets Myles Colvin this three is telling.

As soon as Purdue shows ball screen here, McNeese takes the bait and gets burned by the roll-and-replace after Colvin’s man drops inside.

AN APPARENT PURDUE DEFENSIVE ADJUSTMENT

This may be new, or maybe I just didn’t notice before, but Purdue’s on-ball defenders seem to be giving wide berths to McNeese’s primary ball-handlers bringing the ball up, a move that would theoretically help Purdue keep its halfcourt defense more compact/connected, benefit rebounding and lessen the chance of guards accelerating past Purdue and creating an initial breach.

Some evidence that is Purdue’s specific intent here in this thought-bubble moment from Cox, who specifically backs away to create depth.

MORE DEFENSE

Kaufman-Renn and Furst were tremendous on defense as Purdue is doing a lot of five-way switching it seems.

This is picturesque.

McNeese beats this in the end, but look at how ahead of everything Purdue is here.

Lastly, attention to detail is a big deal in this particular scheme. All of Purdue’s angles here in its positioning are what it wants, and while this is a wide-open three, the outcomes shows you why Purdue is cool letting McNeese have this shot.