#8 Purdue Upset By Unranked Penn State 81-70 On the Road

Purdue continues their habit of losing the first Big Ten road game of the season.

What a terrible first half huh? Purdue came into this game as the 8th ranked team in the country coming off of a big win against Ole Miss in the Rady Children’s Invitational. That game was on a neutral court and apparently that made all the difference. Purdue faced their second road game of the season tonight, their first being the beatdown against Marquette, and they certainly didn’t fare much better in the first half. Braden Smith got into early foul trouble and headed to the bench. The Penn State defense was swarming and forcing Purdue into mistake after mistake. Going into halftime Purdue was down 40-24 and had an astonishing 14 turnovers which Penn State converted into 15 points. That’s in essence the margin of the first half right there.

Penn State shot 65% from the floor including 50% from three (granted it was just 3-6 from deep) and outrebounded the Boilermakers 13-10. Of course it wasn’t all good for Penn State, despite the most important stat (scoring) going their way, as they committed 10 turnovers of their own but Purdue simply wasn’t able to capitalize on them. It would take an incredible turnaround in the second half for Purdue to walk away with a victory on the road in this one. It was the continuation of a pattern we’ve seen over the last several years for this Purdue program.

John Wooden Memorial Player of the Game (JWMPOTG): When I do game wraps I like to give it out to a Purdue player, unless someone from the opponent really stands out, but right now I’m going to have to give it to the Penn State defense as a whole. I mean, they were smothering. They made Purdue rattled after the first few minutes and never looked back. they held Purdue to just 70 points and Purdue also committed 24 turnovers which was a tie for the most ever under head coach Matt Painter. It was a virtuosos performance by a team that, quite frankly, I didn’t have much respect for. That’s one me.

The second half was more of the same for the Boilermakers. Silly fouls. Missed buckets. A tentativeness to the offense that we just haven’t seen. One sequence in the second half really showed this problem. Purdue was struggling to find a shot until Braden Smith was wide open behind the three point line. Rather than take the wide open look he left his foot and then threw it to the corner. No shot was available over there and so Smith got the ball back and tried to then get one more pass all the while the shot clock dwindled down. No shot would even be taken as Raleigh Burgess found himself with the ball in his hand just throwing up a prayer as the shot clock went off. Turnover Purdue.

There was little Purdue could do to slow down the Penn State offense. There was no perimeter defense for the Boilermakers as Penn State shot 39% from three. There was no interior defense as Penn State scored 26 points in the paint. It became very apparent in this one how much Purdue missed Zach Edey, and Daniel Jacobsen as well. This defense was built to have a dominant 7-footer in the lane cleaning things up and with Edey gone to the NBA, Jacobsen with the broken leg, and Will Berg ineffective it has fallen to TKR to play the five and that just isn’t his best position to guard.

For those who are always looking for Matt Painter to light a fire under his team by getting a technical foul, he did that today. It did not help. After seeing TKR getting bullied possession after possession with no foul called, he complained to the officials during the timeout and got T’d up for his trouble. Penn State got two points and Purdue did not in fact have a fire lit under them. Fun fact, this was the first technical foul called on Matt Painter since 2015.

With just over five minutes left in the game Purdue had both Will Berg and Brian Waddell out on the floor as the Boilermakers remained down by 20+ points. It was a sign that Painter wanted to send a message to his starters. CJ Cox powered a little bit of a Purdue run with seven points of his own to cut the lead from 24 to 17. Was it enough to power Purdue to a victory? No, but it was enough to show us that there was fight in this team. Keep in mind that Purdue run occurred with Berg, Waddell, Cox, Myles Colvin, and Camden Heide. The lowest the lead got was 11 with this lineup in the game. It made the end result look much more respectable than it was. For a long while there it looked like Purdue might lose by 30. If Painter was trying to send a message, and I think he was, I hope it was received in time for Sunday’s game against Maryland.

Purdue starts the Big Ten season 0-1, as they have in numerous years in the past. Will that prevent them from winning the Big Ten this year? Certainly not, but it’s not the start we were looking for. Purdue is next in action on Sunday against Maryland.