Hoops Preview: Purdue 2020-21
THE ESSENTIALS
WHAT | #4 Michigan (12-1, 7-1 B1G) vs #25 Purdue (11-5, 6-3) |
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WHERE | Mackey Arena West Lafayette, IN |
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WHEN | 7 PM Eastern Friday January 22nd |
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THE LINE | Kenpom: M -3 Torvik: M –3.3 DraftKings: M –4.5 |
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TELEVISION | FS1 PBP: Kevin Kugler Analyst: Stephen Bardo |
THE OVERVIEW
This is a game with Implications.
Next up on the tour: Purdue, now surging up the conference standings by virtue of a couple of thrilling comebacks against Michigan State and Ohio State—I knew we liked you for a reason, Purdue—and relatively comfortable wins over Indiana and Penn State. They're 6-3 and on the fringe of the conference title picture with a relatively forgiving stretch run. If they were to win this one they'd be a game back with just one game left against M/Iowa/Wisconsin/OSU, the top four teams in the league per Kenpom.
Also it's at Mackey. I don't know how much I believe in weird road juju in a season without fans, but two games after Michigan got demolished at Minnesota I'm still a little jumpy.
THE US
Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:
We've moved Zeb Jackson into the ninth man slot ahead of Terrance Williams given their relative amounts of time in the last few games.
THE LINEUP CARD
Seth's graphic [click for big]:
We put a badge on Painter because this team doesn't have a lot of guys who stand out as individual defenders but they manage to piece together quality defenses anyway.
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]
THE THEM
Williams is in the arena [Campredon]
Purdue has a tendency to concentrate usage in one guy, and hoo boy is that the case this year. Junior center Trevion Williams is second nationally in usage at a whopping 35.3%. Williams is an odd duck, a below-the-rim big with limited range and a spooky ability to make any shot in the paint a decent one:
Synergy shot charting, redder is better
Michigan got the business end of that last year when Williams went 15/27 from two (and hit a rare three) against Jon Teske in Michigan's 84-78 2OT escape last January. The flipside of that: Williams went 8/20 in the return game. Williams does not create many great shots; he creates buckets of decent ones. He's a career 54% two-point shooter—not great for a post—but he's been able to maintain that level of efficiency, or even pip up a bit, despite shouldering a massive burden this year.
Williams is also a magnificent passer. His 28 assist rate is 7th in the league this year, and with a better supporting cast he'd easily crest 30. Williams has a trademark no-look behind-the-head assist that shocks viewers every time no matter how many times you see it—and occasionally shocks his teammates. That basketball IQ also helps him on the boards, where he's top 30 on defense and ninth nationally on offense.
Williams does have a suite of flaws. He's not much of a rim protector with a 3.1 block rate. Purdue is best in the conference at preventing teams from getting to the rim, but they've got the worst defense once teams get there. Williams is part of the former, of course, as Purdue plays excellent team defense just like they have every year under Painter. He's a lot of the latter.
Williams is also a miserable FT shooter (49% career, 48% this year) who is difficult to play late in games. This is a game where Austin Davis could foul out in ten minutes and it would be completely fine. Williams also has a tendency to pick up silly fouls early in games. He's missed big chunks of the first half in three or four games this year.
Hunter is long for a PG but not real efficient [Campredon]
The other high-usage starter is point guard Eric Hunter, a wiry 6'4" junior with dubious efficiency. He's shooting 39/31/88 this year, and those numbers aren't far off his career marks of 43/32/78. Hunter gets to the rim a fair bit but struggles to finish through contact. He's hitting just 39% there, which has to be one of the worst marks in Big Ten. Hunter's eFG in the halfcourt is also 39%; he's just short of a 20 TO rate. It's not great when that's your second banana.
Hunter's size does pose a problem for opposition point guards. Big Ten PGs have struggled badly against Purdue, and while Purdue switches a lot because their personnel 1-4 is capable of it, Hunter is more responsible for those struggles than anyone else on the roster. Hammer and Rails:
Hunter has turned into a really good, aggressive defender on ball. He’s got long arms, good balance, and quick feet. At times he was the most effective guard defender on a team with Nojel Eastern.
This might be of limited relevance if every Michigan possession is a post touch followed by a double and scramble mode. If Painter lets the interior battle be one-on-one Michigan's perimeter guys will get a stiff test.
The rest of the crew is very much supporting cast. Junior Sasha Stefanovic is the Purdue Just A Shooter, which means he's Just A Shooter with a minor in running around insanely fast with no apparent dropoff in his accuracy. Stefanovic is hitting 46% from deep this year, up from 38% last year, but he's had a harder time in Big Ten play at 36%. In all other ways he's the same guy he was last year.
Freshman SG Brandon Newman is in our Not Just A Shooter bin but should probably drop the "not" as a freshman: he splits his attempts evenly between twos and threes, is much more effective behind the line(38%) than inside it(47%), and has a TO rate near 20. Purdue's frequently clunky offense is probably forcing him into situations he's not quite ready for. As a recruit he was just outside the top 100 because he fit the Purdue Shooter archetype to a T:
Measurables aren’t great for a prospect who plays off the ball at 6-foot-3. One of the best catch-and-shoot guys in the country. Should stretch the defense quite a bit during his time at Purdue. Can flat out shoot it from deep. Is OK off the dribble, but mostly excels off the catch.
Force off line, deal with the consequences, you know the drill.
Freshman burlywing Mason Gillis is the final starter. He mostly stays out of the way on offense (13% usage) unless someone else sets him up for a dunk or three—he's got two unassisted, non-putback shots at the rim this year. He's shooting 71% on twos as a result. He also has an okay three-point stroke and has hit 14/16 FTs on the year.
Gillis chips in some offensive rebounds, as befits a burlywing, and has a 22 TO rate that's particularly vexing because he's barely dribbling.
Purdue's bench is deep but not particularly efficient. The cast:
- Freshman center Zach Edey is the largest human I've ever seen in a Purdue uniform. This puts him high in the running for largest human world-wide. The 7'4, 285 pound Edey has terrifying potential. Inevitably for a freshman the size of Grave Digger, he is a work in progress. Shooting 58% from the floor, 8.7 block rate that's good but maybe not as good as you might expect for his size, tons of turnovers. Way better movement than you'd expect, but still not good.
- Freshman wing Jaden Ivey is an athlete who looks like he's going to be a player; he is currently a guy who can't shoot and shoots a lot. He gets up 30% of Purdue's shots when he's on the court; he's hitting 54/21 and is currently 52% from the line. That 54% from two is really two very different numbers: Ivey is 77% at the rim and 29% away from it. Ivey is creating most of his twos himself, so that's a point in his favor, and has a rock-bottom TO rate.
- Poor damn Aaron Wheeler has recovered somewhat from a disastrous sophomore year, mostly by refusing to shoot from two in Big Ten play. He is 4/5. Wheeler is long at 6'9" and has evolved into a defensive pest; he's Purdue's best option to double Dickinson. A 25 TO rate and 26% three-point shooting may make it hard to keep him out there unless he's super-effective on D.
- You probably remember willowy backup point Isaiah Thompson—who somehow lost five pounds after his first season in a college S&C program—from that 2 OT win last year when he came off the bench to put up 14 points on 10 shot equivalents. This year he's seen his playing time wane after starting the first five games when Hunter was out. Other than a 4/4 outburst against Rutgers all of his makes in league play have been from deep.
- Finally, freshman Ethan Morton is an 11% usage guy with a 39% TO rate. He should be another perimeter sniper once he gets his feet under him.
THE TEMPO-FREE
Conference numbers; left is offense, right is defense.
Purdue's got a lot of red in drill-down offensive stats. They're 12th in 3P%, 9th in FT%, 12th in getting blocked, and 10th in giving up steals. Things are better on defense, but it jumps out that they're giving up a ton of threes and a lot of assists. They are 341st nationally in preventing 3s and 330th at preventing assists.
As mentioned in the Trevion Williams section above, Purdue has some remarkable shooting splits. They're 8th nationally at preventing teams from getting to the rim, and 330th once teams get there. Opponents end up taking all those threes, making them at a mediocre rate.
Purdue also has a remarkable transition split on Hoop-Math: opponent eFG is actually six points lower (44%) in the first ten seconds of the clock than in the halfcourt (50%). That is the second-best high major number in the country, behind only Washington State.
THE KEYS
This projects to be one of Davis's best matchups of the year [Campredon]
POST THUNDERDOME. Two KPOY top ten centers go head to head. Can Dickinson keep his spot against the meaty Williams? Can he endure 35% usage without picking up fouls? Can Williams meaningfully contest Dickinson shots? Will Purdue double the post as heavily as Minnesota and Maryland? Will Zach Edey blot out the sun and various shots? Can Austin Davis go toe-to-toe with Williams? Questions will be answered!
Purdue has not faced a ton of post-ups this year—91 possessions including pass-outs—but they have doubled on 38 of those. Their results aren't great (40th percentile on Synergy). Individually, Williams grades out as an average post defender*. (Edey barely has any sample size.) Kofi Cockburn went 7/9; Trayce Jackson-Davis went 9/16 and drew 14 FTs. Dickinson post ups should be relatively productive.
On the other end, I mean… Williams is going to get up a bunch of shots of middling quality. They will fall or they will not. The invariability of this means Davis can see the floor without the alarming 2P% we saw against Maryland, and aggressively contest a bunch of shots by a 47% FT shooter. If he fouls out he's done his job.
*[We're usually skeptical of Synergy individual defensive numbers since basketball is not often a one-on-one sport and their numbers often fail the smell test, but post defense feels like an exception.]
All hail Gamblor. The gods of randomness will have a heavy influence on this game what with Williams throwing up a bunch of coin flips and the likelihood both teams take a bunch of threes. Purdue has been wildly variable from behind the line in their last four, hitting 13%, 19%, and 25% against MSU, PSU, and OSU, respectively, while also bombing Indiana at 65%. They flipped that script on the defensive end with three games where the opposition shot 25% or under until OSU just hit them in a 14/35 performance.
Break the perimeter. If Michigan gets up more shots at the rim than they do long twos, they win. Purdue's highly organized but Michigan has a couple of advantages: the possibility that Dickinson forces doubles and forces Purdue into rotations, and Franz Wagner's crazy gumby arms.
Continue reasonable turnover performance. Purdue is another team that doesn't force a lot of turnovers. Michigan halved its TO rate from the disastrous Minnesota game to the comfortable Maryland one, and that Minnesota game is a giant outlier in what's otherwise a story of steady improvement in Big Ten play:
Michigan's two best games actually bookend the ambush at the Barn.
THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES
Michigan by 3.
January 22nd, 2021 at 12:47 PM ^
Given Michigan's brutal final seven games (eight if they're able to make up @PSU), I would venture to say this is a must win to stay on track for conf title and a 1 seed.
January 22nd, 2021 at 12:47 PM ^
Only favored by 3?! How can I hold my breath for 20 minutes at a time?
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:52 PM ^
Purdue's record is actually pretty impressive. Their only losses were Illinois by 8, @Gers by 5, @ Miami FL by 4, @ Clemson, and @Iowa by a lot. They have beaten ohio twice and almost doubled up Oakland. After UM, they play Minny twice and Wisky. They could definitely get a double bye.
January 22nd, 2021 at 3:04 PM ^
If we only win by 3, bluegary will call it a loss.
January 22nd, 2021 at 12:55 PM ^
That picture of Zach Edey is hilarious. That's one giant of a man.
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:22 PM ^
The ball hog symbol under Zach Edey's picture, I took for the planet Saturn, in that his size closely resembles it,
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:23 PM ^
richard kiel, aka jaws
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:04 PM ^
Purdue's ability to always have a giant human being and a white guy who is insanely good at moving off ball and hitting 3s is astounding
We should definitely attack Williams early and often tonight. Get him into foul trouble and Purdue will have issues
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:11 PM ^
Big game tonight. Let's get it at Mackey!
Nojel Eastern's name drop in this write-up briefly had me wondering how our roster would look with him in the lineup. After some brief internal musings, I concluded that I'm satisfied with our current roster composition.
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:47 PM ^
This is a beautifully concise story.
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:18 PM ^
I don't know how much I believe in weird road juju in a season without fans, but two games after Michigan got demolished at Minnesota I'm still a little jumpy.
The study is ongoing, but so far, based on this "control season" it seems that the impact of fans on homecourt advantage may be less than most of us thought. Homecourt advantage still seems to be a thing this season sans fans.
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:59 PM ^
I think the crowd is definitely a part of the home field advantage, but getting up (or down) by a lot early tends to take the crowd out of it.
But I'm certain travelling for many hours and playing on an unfamiliar court, rims, shooting backdrop, etc also play into the advantage.
I ,for one, kinda thought the refs changed their calls based on the crowd. Maybe being afraid to make a bad call against the home team. Not sure if this has proven out this year, but it seems like the refs have been much more even this year. Not saying the refs are good (I'm looking at you Borowski and Karstenson) but at least more even.
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:57 PM ^
"Bad call against the home team" meaning "correct call against the home team that fans will hate"?
January 22nd, 2021 at 5:03 PM ^
B1G allows a number of different basketballs to be used, home team gets to pick the ball, so that's another reason for the home team advantage. I can't find it, but I remember reading that Minnesota is the only team that picks the ball they use at the Barn. Maybe it's a weird one...somehow.
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:39 PM ^
Absolutely massive game
Win this, and they're probably big ten favorites
Lose, and they've squandered two big opportunities to separate from the rest of the conference
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:26 PM ^
with one loss, to say they have squandered opportunities is well, silly.
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:41 PM ^
Clearly that mascot doesn't do leg day
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:26 PM ^
Just wanted to compliment your avatar. How, pray tell, can I get flow like that?
January 22nd, 2021 at 1:56 PM ^
Wary of road games. Just win. Eli and C. Brown, stay in Stefanovic's shorts all day long. Davis and Johns, Jr. This is the game you go hard and foul out. You got 10 fouls. Williams is a 48% FT shooter. Park him at the line. And please, dear God, somebody hit those wide open 3s if they're going to double Hunter.
8.5.7January 22nd, 2021 at 1:58 PM ^
The Rick James hair bead is noted and appreciated.
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:13 PM ^
One Purdue tradition (multiple guys with names starting with Haa-) ends, another (multiple guys with four-letter names ending in -ey) commences.
(Of course the tradition of 7'3"+ guys continues.)
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:17 PM ^
He’s usage freaky!!
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:35 PM ^
WIN. THE. GAME.
January 22nd, 2021 at 2:43 PM ^
Crossing my fingers for a better reffed game than the Minnesota one. Really hoping we don't see many fouls called on Hunter for Williams barreling into his chest trying to make space to get his shot up.
I still will never understand how an offensive player going shoulder first into his defenders chest is a defensive foul. But I hope they hold the whistle on some cheap ones to keep Hunter in the game.
January 22nd, 2021 at 3:03 PM ^
Calling this one tight might not be the worst thing as long as Williams gets as many as Hunter.
January 22nd, 2021 at 3:41 PM ^
If you've got the better team (I think we do), you want the refs to let 'em play.
January 22nd, 2021 at 6:46 PM ^
With Davis to help absorb fouls, getting Williams out of the game while retaining Hunter's services might be do-able.
January 22nd, 2021 at 3:15 PM ^
It has probably already been said - but if not, when will Juwan get his star down for being a top 50 recruit? He has been waiting 30 years for this.
January 22nd, 2021 at 3:33 PM ^
Lack of a home crowd withstanding, don’t factors like the background and tightness of the rims have a bearing on players’ performances? I know when I played pickup games I could never get used to how tight rims were at some of the schools. Could shoot a lot better at my high school where we played and knew the nuances of that gym.
January 22nd, 2021 at 3:47 PM ^
Wait...didn't we just see this team? Four guys about 6 foot 5 and a center?? Granted, the center is a LOT better than the ones on MD, and Purdue also seems to have an actual point guard.
Stick to the shooters on D, pound the ball inside, don't turn it over, make it into a classic Beilein 'shooting contest' except with a post presence.
January 22nd, 2021 at 3:48 PM ^
It will be interesting to see how we respond to another quality opponent on the road. A good start will help with our confidence. Good luck guys ?.
Go Blue ??
January 22nd, 2021 at 3:56 PM ^
Sounds like there are potential COVID issues on the Purdue side, looks like this one might get postponed.
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:09 PM ^
Ah man -- no shit? I hadn't heard ANYTHING about that. This would be an extremely late postponement, if so.
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:44 PM ^
Rumor is Stefanovic, and possibly the freshman Ethan Morton
January 22nd, 2021 at 5:03 PM ^
Haven’t actually watched Purdue play at all this season. Is Stefanovic a big loss for them? Also maybe Michigan should postpone if possible. Better safe then sorry. Tell Kevin Warren to shove it.
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:28 PM ^
I'm hearing one starter for Purdue is out but nothing at the moment about postponement. But we shall see.
January 22nd, 2021 at 4:49 PM ^
Michigan would not be smart to play this game. Could be more Purdue cases to come in the next few days and set-up Mich for their own situation
January 22nd, 2021 at 5:05 PM ^
Purdue looks like garbage whenever i watch them, but they keep winning. Naturally they will somehow pound us because sports never make any sense.
January 22nd, 2021 at 7:45 PM ^
Dickinson goes for 20pts. 12 boards & 3 blocks in a win.
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