Feature image from @Boilerball

Well, that didn’t go as planned.

Purdue was coming off their most impressive stretch of a seemingly-lost reloading season, throttling Wisconsin and Iowa at home, stealing a win at Northwestern (with a Sasha go-ahead three-pointer that might singlehandedly save Purdue’s tourney chances), and ruined St. Knight’s return to Ass. Hall in Bloomington.

With Trevion Williams as Purdue’s foundation, the complementary pieces finally started clicking at the same time. Transfer seniors Evan Boudreaux and Jahaad Proctor stepped up to Big Ten competition and filled huge voids in the starting lineup. Wings Sasha Stefanovic, Eric Hunter emerged into more consistent scorers. Isaiah Thompson was scoring off the bench.

Penn State had been impressive, but other Big Ten contenders have stepped into Mackey and only Illinois, a nightmare matchup for this Purdue roster, left victorious. If Purdue won just their remaining home games, they’d end up with 18 wins, 11 against Big Ten teams as the conference proves to be the deepest in the country. Purdue fans had every reason to expect a (close) win.

And then the game tipped off.

It was billed as Lamar Stevens’ versatile offense vs Nojel Eastern’s suffocating defense. It turned into a three-point barrage, and not by the team we were expecting.

Purdue’s offense early was flowing through an unusually aggressive Nojel, who’s finally beginning to emerge as the player we were all hoping for when the year began. He wasn’t afraid to drive, was pulling up for left-handed elbow jumpers if given any space, and got Stevens into early foul trouble.

These were all reasons to expect a Purdue lead, or a close game. And yet…Penn State opened shooting 4/6 from beyond the arc in the first five minutes of the game, allowed by a few molasses-slow Purdue defensive rotations. (See “The Bad” for more.)

A 5-point PSU lead ballooned to 11 after a Boudreaux miscommunication, and trio of PSU threes following two slow Boudreaux defensive rotations, and a handful of missed shots at the rim from Trevion, Nojel, Haarms all missing shots right at the rim.

A Haarms-fueled mini-run, with a few midrange jumpers from Proctor/Hunter/Nojel, got Purdue to within striking distance, but I think Purdue followed it up by missing all of the world’s wide-open three pointers. Penn State looked unphased by Purdue’s small run, and their poise in a hostile Mackey resulted in ten made first-half threes on 53% shooting.

That’s right. Penn State basketball hit 10 three-pointers in Mackey Arena, as Purdue hit zero, trailing 42-30 at the half. With Lamar Stevens playing a foul-plagued 9 minutes. In the same seven-day stretch that saw the Boilermakers throttle #17 Iowa and IU in Bloomington during Knight night.

What a weird season.

Still trading baskets with Penn State, looking very poised in Mackey. Strong defense inside (though a few fouls were missed), and scoring every possession. Pulling away again, hitting 10 threes (53%) to Purdue’s zero in the first half and leading at halftime 42-30. Only 9 minutes from Stevens who had foul trouble. Not a great sign.

Half begins with PSU going into the paint, Haarms getting muscled, and Purdue turning over. PSU barrage continuing, down 19.

The game was over when…Penn State opened the second half on a 13-2 run during the first 5 minutes of the second half, opening a 21-point lead. If the three-point barrage dug Purdue into a deep hole, Purdue’s post defense early in the second half shoved the Boilers off the edge and unloaded the dump truck full of dirt.

See “The Ugly” below for graphic details, but Purdue got bullied in Mackey during that stretch. Even a handful of good runs later in the game, including Proctor leading an 11-2 run midway through the half, wasn’t enough to put Penn State on their heels.

Mackey had one final roar in them late in the game, with Purdue cutting the lead to 10 with two minutes to play (after Painter chewed out the starters for an entire timeout). But the run came way too late, and Purdue fell 12 points short.

Purdue’s tourney chances are still alive, especially as the bubble is weaker than any year in recent memory. But I still think Purdue needs to break the 17- or 18-win mark to feel good about being on the right side of that line. Purdue travels to Ohio State and Wisconsin in the upcoming week, and needs to steal one of those road wins to generate a little more momentum as this bizarre season winds down.

Player of the Game

On Purdue’s end, Jahaad Proctor scored an efficient 15 points on 5/8 shooting and spurred a few mini-runs that kept Purdue afloat…before eventually drowning under a barrage of threes.

But both Mike Watkins and Seth Lundy were excellent for Penn State, particularly with a relatively quiet night from Lamar Stevens in Mackey. Watkins dominated the second half for the talented senior’s first excellent game against Purdue (see “The Bad”), while Lundy finished with 18 points shooting 6/9 from three. Each one seemed like a backbreaker.

The Good

• Nojel Eastern continued his very good stretch of games, and I hope to see this aggressive version of Nojel with the ball down as the season winds down. He finished with 8 points on 4/5 shooting and 10 rebounds, and was a huge part of why Stevens only played 9 minutes in the first half.

• Eric Hunter kept his shooting consistency going, with his third straight double-digit scoring game. 14 points on 6/12 shooting, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, a fine night for Hunter.

The Bad

• Evan Boudreaux, and this one hurts. He’s had his best Purdue stretch over the last few games, and has been the real catalyst as Purdue possibly saved their tourney hopes. But Purdue needs that power forward spot solidified, and tonight Boudreaux didn’t have it. 0 points, 0 field goal attempts, 2 rebounds in 14 minutes.

• Three-point shooting, especially at home. 0/8 in the first half is bad. 4/17 for the game is bad. Half of the team’s made three-pointers coming from Trevion is bad. This season is weird.

The Ugly

• Rotations onto three-point shooters early in the game. Purdue is usually crisp on these, especially in Mackey. But in the first half it looked like Purdue wasn’t expecting much from a 32.6% shooting Penn State. Rotations were almost intentionally slow, like they were surrendering the three in favor of preventing any drive into the paint. Boudreaux was slow on several early, and once Penn State got confident it removed any and all confidence from their presence in Mackey:

• Post defense was the unsung weakness tonight, with Haarms and everyone getting bullied by Mike Watkins. Purdue then tried fronting, and Watkins easily spun out and perfectly-spotted entry passes led to easy dunks. Watkins ended any chance of a Purdue run, and drove it into miracle-comeback-necessary territory. 19 points on 9/12 shooting and 10 rebounds. Also, he’s got an incredible face.

Statistic of the Night: