Game Wrap: Purdue 66 Texas A&M 70

Boilers drop another game after issues with turnovers and long scoring droughts pop up…again.

The Purdue Boilermakers struggled against another good defensive team as they dropped a game to Texas A&M (). The Aggies entered the game as one of the best defensive teams in the country but hadn’t shot the ball well from the floor and relied on their free throws and rebounding to grind games away. It is a formula that Purdue has struggled with this season in losses to Marquette and Penn State prior to today.

Purdue made runs to get themselves small leads but quickly relinquished the leads all too often when they were unable to stop the frequent small runs. What hurt the Boilers the most was a more than seven minute drought in the middle part of the second half where Purdue went from down 2 to down 12. That punctuated a common occurrence on the day of yo-yoing but never quite taking a handle on the game.

Purdue’s struggles with turnovers again reared its’ ugly head with 16 for the game but when eleven of those come from Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn, there is little to no room for the Boilers to find an avenue for victory against a quality opponent. Smith has now had two games where he has turned the ball over 6 times but more concerning is the lack of control from TKR who now has added four games of his own with 3 or more turnovers (5 today). Purdue ended up giving up 22 points off turnovers and allowed the Aggies to have 24 trips to the free throw line.

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Smith led the Boilers with 15 points shooting 5-11 from behind the arc but TKR struggled to 11 points on 3-9 shooting. Overall, the Boilers shot 24-53 for 45.3% but went just 9-26 from behind the arc. Loyer chipped in 12 of his own points while shooting 5-8 from the floor but got only two looks from behind the arc and failed to connect on either of those. The big three for the Boilers just never really appeared comfortable again in a game where the opponent was willing to play a highly physical game. This was actually the first instance of seeing Smith being face guarded off the ball and Loyer has, over the last several games, not gotten good looks.

Purdue found itself struggling to initiate offense early in the game and pivoted away from the high ball screen. This look finally freed up the offense but the Boilers couldn’t carry that over into the second half where they scored only 31 points. The Boilers entered that second half down just three points but quickly found themselves down 8 with A&M going on a 5-0 run. That is where Purdue really had their best portion of the game where they went on a 9-0 run to take a 44-43 lead with 17:03 left in the game. The Aggies then went on a 19-6 run over the next twelve minutes and change and was, inevitably, too much for the Boilers to overcome.

The Aggies were led by two different players scoring 16 points in Zhuric Phelps and Pharrel Payne along with 15 points and 5 assists from Wade Taylor. The Aggies were not great in their own accord with 18 turnovers and giving up 20 points off turnovers and 17 fast break points, but just outwilled the Boilers throughout the entire game.

The Boilers get no break from another top opponent that plays with physicality and will as they will take on the #2 Auburn Tigers in Birmingham, Alabama a week from today. It will be another litmus test for the Purdue team that has had their flaws brought to the surface but haven’t been able to find ways to pull through them in games this season.

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