Upon Further Review-Wisconsin

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 seventh-ranked Boilermakers’ 94-84 loss to Wisconsin.

PDF: Purdue-Wisconsin statistics

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(Video clips via CBS)

PURDUE DEFENSIVE ISSUES

First off, Purdue’s biggest problem defensively was that Wisconsin was awesome, just tremendous. It really turned the screws on vulnerabilities it cracked open, and deserves credit not just for pushing the right buttons, but executing damn near flawlessly. Purdue was not what it has been on defense, but this was more about Wisconsin making Purdue look bad as opposed to Purdue just being bad.

So, first off: Background … Purdue’s new-ish defense is designed to keep compact as much as it can to ensure there’s always help against the dribble and in the post, among other intents. It is meant to cover up limitations one-on-one against the dribble.

As a refresher, here’s what it’s supposed to look like, the baseline help coming in from CJ Cox while Fletcher Loyer rotates to the vacated shooter in the corner.

There are ways around it, same as there is for any system. Wisconsin pushed all the right buttons and has a skilled enough and patient enough team to make days like Saturday happen.

Where to begin?

Against what Purdue does, you want to be able to spread the floor. The pick-and-pop three can be a real weapon for teams with the personnel to do it.

Nolan Winter gets it started early, as all this early stuff lays the groundwork for what comes later.

You’ve heard Matt Painter say it a hundred times about defense this season: “You can’t live in help.”

Right off the bat, Wisconsin forced Purdue into help with post-ups following switches.

Teams that are patient and methodical and disciplined enough to machinate until something pops open are going to have an advantage. Here it’s this driving angle for Max Klesmit against Trey Kaufman-Renn, the initial breach that sets the whole thing is motion. Ball movement occupies help man Braden Smith and frees John Tonje in the corner. Really impressive possession here by the Badgers. Everybody touches the ball, the ball switches sides and all the passes are clean as can be.

Wisconsin was very sharp in forcing and attacking switches, both Purdue’s slower-footed posts and its smaller guards. Here, they force this switch with this side ball screen, gets Smith tethered to Winter, who pushes the point guard up the lane to set up the lob then finishes before help can arrive.

The antidote to this is to deny the pass in, but entry man Steven Crowl has a few inches of clearance over TKR so easier said than done. CJ Cox is Purdue’s low man here, but he’s stuck between staying behind the post-up and making sure the Big Ten’s best three-point shooting team doesn’t get a wide-open look. Crowl probably has options here based on what Cox does.

A hallmark of Wisconsin’s Swing offense has always been its eagerness to post up all sorts of players all over the floor. Here they push Smith into a switch again and post him up, triggering Purdue’s help and playing off it. Camden Heide is now responsible for the back side here after Gicarri Harris has to help. The progression of things leads to leakage.

Again, the longer these possessions go, the better the chances a breakdown occurs. Wisconsin’s M.O. has always been to be methodical, and when a high-powered offense team plays that way, that’s a long 30 seconds for a defense.

In this case, 29.5 seconds. Looks here like low-man Loyer steps to the passing alley out to Kamari McGee, allowing the baseline cut right behind him.

Mind you, Wisconsin is an elite three-point shooting team that came in shooting just as many threes as not. Purdue’s concerns in that regard are justified.

You can kind of see Wisconsin’s understanding of Purdue’s help infrastructure here. On this simple side pick-and-roll, Winter just jump steps to the middle instead of to the baseline, allowing him to score through three guys, if he doesn’t opt to pass to the corner, which the step to the middle opened up.

Another cheat code for a Purdue defense that overloads one side of the floor: Reverse it. That’s how you get driving lanes.

Wisconsin did a nice job schematically dividing and conquering against a defense that, again, strives to be compact. Look how Wisconsin fans out here to put Cox in a one-on-one situation, defeating Purdue’s help concepts.

(One other thing I will add without bogging you down in clips … Cox, Harris and Myles Colvin were as much a part of Purdue’s defensive emergence as anything, with the jobs they were doing on the ball, but this game looked like December. If anyone’s wearing out as the season advances, maybe it’s the young guys?)

Anyway, the switch-attacking wasn’t just aimed at Smith and Loyer, but Kaufman-Renn, too. TKR is their 5 here, but Purdue seems to be doing here what it did with Zach Edey last year, that once the ball hits the foul line, it triggers the 5-man switch. Max Klesmit even seems to tap his foot down as if to say, “Tag, you’re it.” Once he’s got the switch, they stay spread out to not allow the switch back.

In these switches, Wisconsin made a couple really big-time one-on-one plays.

This was one of the damned-if-you-do moments of the day. Purdue executes its help well, Tonje is rebuffed, but then just drives right back into the same help. Maybe he’s playing 3-D chess here.

Once all this stuff happened, Purdue was just on skates late in the game. You’re spread out to account for the three, vulnerable to the dribble and Wisconsin’s in the double bonus and an 80-percent foul-shooting team. Everything you’ve built your defense around is out the window, so when you want to protect a player like Loyer, you can’t.

You can’t really protect the lane, either. This is 100-percent about Purdue having to account for every Badger on the floor around the arc.

So this all may look like a defense that has flat been figured out, and yeah, that’s part of it. Big Ten coaches are paid handsomely for a reason and there’s six weeks of tape out there now.

But knowing what to do and doing it are two different things, and Wisconsin is uncommonly geared to do this stuff with this team.

TREY KAUFMAN-RENN CARRIES OFFENSE

This guy is really something.

Here he is scoring on the whole state of Wisconsin.

This inverted ball screen is so consistently effective. Purdue seems to be managing it well, too, and not running it so much opponents are sitting on it. Moderation is probably why it works every time.

This stuff may look simple. It is not.

Thirty points, five assists, seven fouls drawn and just one turnover. Probably would have had a bunch more rebounds too had Wisconsin missed shots.

IN-BOUND DEFENSE

Wisconsin really worked Purdue over on BLOB plays.

Purdue is using 4 man Caleb Furst here to jump out to hedge on this presumed dribble handoff. Wisconsin anticipates it and just has Winter slip the screen.

Again, this time on Camden Heide.

Purdue adjusts and doesn’t allow the slip, which just creates space on the floor for a straight drive, which Purdue can’t contain without fouling.

Again, a targeted attempt to get a big on a little at the basket. Nice play design here.

MISC

• So if you want to know why Purdue’s transition offense dried up midway through the first half, yeah, it was because it wasn’t getting turnovers or stops, but Wisconsin’s disinterest in offensive rebounding in order to load up in transition defense is pretty evident here. They’re basically established in halfcourt defense before the ball crosses midcourt.

• I will reiterate that this is a moving screen, but these things are 75-percent more likely to get called when fouls are out of whack, as they were here.

• Wisconsin’s bigs did a great job staying in front of Smith in switches on defense. He’s so good in those situations, but Crowl, Winter and this Jack Janicki fellow conceded nothing.

• Seems to me like is spending a good deal of mental energy worried about foul calls, as if the Michigan game got between their ears. Painter even made mention after the game of them not ‘worrying about the refs. ‘talking to officials.’