Upon Further Review—Yale

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 14th-ranked Boilermakers’ 92-84 win over Yale.

PDF: Purdue-Yale stats

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(Video clips via BTN)

TREY KAUFMAN-RENN AT CENTER

So this was the first time this season Purdue has slid Trey Kaufman-Renn inside to the 5 to create more versatile and offense-optimized lineups.

One little wrinkle that came out of it was the flipped pick-and-rolls we’d mentioned earlier on this season. Purdue went to this while trying to close the game out. Basically TKR sets up at the elbow and Braden Smith sets a cross screen for him to get to his dribble with his right hand. This drew fouls both times Purdue went to it late in the game.

Not sure what the tree of options that come off this action ultimately looks like — it’s not like Smith is a roll man — but at its most basic level, this may force a guard to switch onto TKR with a head of steam toward the basket, in close quarters. At worst, he dribbles into a post-up on an overmatched player or simply uses his body to wall off the guard altogether and gets all the way to the rim, as the other team’s big man is out of the play and thus not at the rim.

The interactions between Smith and Kaufman-Renn in these situations will be interesting, as Purdue uses TKR in the middle of the floor.

This worked.

Using TKR in the middle as the primary screener for Smith opened things up for a lot of other stuff, including some of the threes Camden Heide got as the “indirect.” This is a great look, but also an opportunity for the 4 man to throw the ball into the post from the middle of the floor. Mason Gillis lived off this kind of stuff.

Anyway, 4 or 5, Kaufman-Renn faced a variety of defensive ploys for really the first time this season and handled them all pretty well. This is going to be new responsibility for him and a really important one.

This was designed, looks like, to open the game.

Here, Yale’s big guy doubles on the second dribble, but TKR has drawn out the play make sure Gicarri Harris‘ man has fully committed to Will Berg diving to the rim.

Yale seems confused here after getting burned the first couple possessions.

No help …

MYLES COLVIN ON D

This barely looks like the same player on defense.

Myles Colvin really looks like he is engaged defensively.

This is an awareness play, as he is responsible for both those guys on the back side.

This is Colvin chasing John Poulakidas, avoiding screens and never giving Poulakidas more room than Colvin could use his size and length to chose off in a pinch.

Lastly, this. It was Colvin who more or less created this turnover by taking Poulakidas out.

This rebound was big, as was Colvin’s awareness at the other end to cut away from the rim to open the alley for CJ Cox.

DEFENSIVE PROBLEMS

Yale ran good, purposeful offense, but Purdue’s back-end defensive help has been spotty at best.

There have been cross-ups in transition defense, but this one can chalked up to circumstance since Loyer drove the ball whereas he’d oridnarily been the deepest guy on offense, and Smith shot it. Both fell down, which didn’t help, either.

(I thought I clipped more than that. I guess not.)

DEFENSIVE POSITIVES

Equal time.

Will Berg covers baseline to baseline here, twice shutting off Yale surges. Both times — first Loyer, then Smith — have the diver accounted for, where issues have often existed.

Great job by Caleb Furst here.

MISC

• Adding to the TKR-at-center stuff, there were tradeoffs defensively and on the glass, but at least the lineups did make Purdue more interchangeable. An effective switch by Heide as the 4 man did create a turnover (and unfortunately injury) and a five-way switch by TKR did create a deflection out of bounds. FWIW.

• This sure looks like three dudes who’ve played a lot of basketball together. A great decision by Fletcher Loyer to know what was coming behind him and pull the ball out to set it up.

Gorgeous.

• Harris isn’t going to get many plays run for him, but here’s how motion can work for him.

• After all of Cox’s jumpers prior to Yale came going right, he flipped it vs. Yale.

• Pretty great end-of-half play by Purdue here, the red herring here being the possibility of the ball just being handed back to Smith on the run. Instead, Loyer pops out of the scrum and drags the switching defender into TKR’s screen. To the big guy’s credit, he seems to know what’s up, but he’s too late to take away the shot.

• This Raleigh Burgess screening action led to a lot of good things for Purdue.

The hustle here from Heide and Burgess should be highlighted.