No major conference team in college basketball is playing with more pace and operating with a more modernized offense — prioritizing, like many an NBA team, 3-pointers and layups as their primary shot diet — than the Alabama Crimson Tide. But on Thursday night it was ironically an old-school attack from No. 2 Purdue — a deliberate halfcourt offense with high-level execution, control in the paint and punishing physicality — that dealt the No. 8 Tide their first defeat of the young season.
The final: Purdue 87, Alabama 80.
Purdue scored the win as road underdogs and in the process proved it should not have been underdogs in this game — and, perhaps, should not be underdogs in any game this season — because of its inside-out star power and quality of depth. Braden Smith was the main attraction in this one: He finished with 29 points, four assists and seven boards. But co-star Trey Kaufman-Renn in his first appearance of the season coming off injury was highly effective, too, turning in 19 points, 15 boards and a game-high five assists.
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Alabama coach Nate Oats said earlier this week Kaufman-Renn “had his way” with Alabama’s frontcourt last November when he went for 26 points and eight boards and downed the Crimson Tide in West Lafayette. It was more of the same Thursday this time in Tuscaloosa. Kaufman-Renn made a team-high nine field goals, had a plus-minus of +20 to lead both teams and was a key component in maximizing Purdue’s potent weapons around him.
Contrasting styles
Styles make fights in college basketball and that’s why Thursday’s battle between these two top-10 teams was such a rare treat. Alabama leads the country in adjusted tempo among major conference teams, and its offensive style under Oats is simple: Take a 3-pointer or a layup, or find someone else who will. The sight of a shot chart where a player’s toe is on the 3-point line physically makes Oats wince.
Purdue’s approach is much more nuanced. Its adjusted pace is seventh-slowest in the sport according to KenPom.com data. Its focus isn’t just on 3-pointers and layups but rather on clean looks. Coach Matt Painter, as Oats said this week, has “a gazillion sets and different counters to everything they do.”
The result is this beauty of a shot chart below that couldn’t be much more different. Purdue on the right, you can see, took shots from deep, shots at the rim, shots around the elbows — and everywhere in between. Alabama took almost exclusively 3-pointers, layups or shots inside the painted area. The two attempts outside the paint that weren’t 3-pointers will undoubtedly be called out in film review as no-nos. I’d bet a dollar on it. Maybe even two.
Purdue won with its own less modern approach Thursday but that is in no way a suggestion Alabama should consider tweaking its own attack. It didn’t result in a win on this night because Purdue is a great college basketball team and it got great performances from its best players. But Alabama under Oats is 13-7 in games his team has attempted 40 or more 3-pointers. Two of those losses were in overtime, two of those losses were to Purdue, and three were games in which Bama was an underdog in the betting market by tipoff.
That’s a long way to say: Oats’ formula is a winning one. You don’t get the Tide to a Final Four by happenstance and luck.
Still, Purdue’s operation was as efficient as a NASCAR pit crew. This game was not an indictment on Alabama’s style but instead an ode to the goodness of Purdue’s. It outscored Alabama 30-22 in the paint, won the battle on the boards 52 to 28 (!!!!) and pulled down 19 offensive rebounds — helping it to 16 second-chance points in a category that may have been the deciding factor in the outcome.
Purdue also made 23 2-point shots to Alabama’s 12. Of those 23 for Purdue, six were layups and two were dunks.
“The tougher team won tonight,” Oats said. “They outrebounded us by 24. That’s embarrassing.”
Purdue’s key to victory
Painter and his staff are accustomed to, and keenly aware of, what Alabama wants to accomplish on offense. They’ve seen this team in three straight years now and have seen the dynamism of their outside shooting. So ironically, Painter after the game said Purdue’s plan in this one — against a team heavily reliant on 3s and highly successful in making them — was to force the ball outside of the painted area and make them win on the perimeter.
“We wanted to square the ball [defensively] and keep it in front of us,” Painter said. “But we didn’t want to give their big guys slips. We saw in their last game they got so many layups. We wanted to keep it on the perimeter. They took 44 3s. … But at the end of the day, outside of Holloway, nobody really got away from us.”
Oats’ initial postgame assessment of Alabama’s struggles — outside of the obvious issues rebounding the ball — was more or less the same.
“They collapsed heavy,” he said. “When they collapse as heavy as they did, they’re going to give up 3s, and we got up 44. So they packed it in pretty tight and tried to keep it out of the lane.”
Purdue primed to jump to No. 1
Despite a 2-0 start to its season, Purdue, the preseason No. 1 team in college basketball, was demoted to No. 2 earlier this week in the first in-season AP Top 25 poll of the season. It is just the second preseason No. 1 team in college basketball in two decades to fall from the No. 1 spot despite not suffering a loss. (The other: Kansas in 2018-19 fell from No. 1, leapfrogged by the RJ Barrett and Zion Williamson-led Duke Blue Devils.)
I expect voters will rectify the mistake come Monday and push Purdue back to the top spot.
With Kaufman-Renn back in the lineup this Purdue team is as formidable as we expected it’d be at full strength. A win over a top-10 road team that just days earlier defeated a top-five team on the road is an incredible feat.
“They’re tough,” Oats said. “They deserved to win the game. In sports, it’s nice when the team that deserves to win, wins. And they deserved to win this one tonight.”
