Purdue Basketball: USC Preview

USC limps into West Lafayette hoping to pull the upset with the status of their best player up in the air.

Purdue (18-5, Big 10, 10-2) vs USC (13-9, Big 10, 5-6)

USC Roster

Desmond Claude Injury

Admittedly, sometimes these come out late because I get caught up with something else. In this case, I’ve had most of this preview completed since Monday. Unfortunately, USC’s point guard Desmond Claude, far and away their best player, missed USC’s loss to Northwestern on Tuesday. He’s listed as “questionable” for tonight’s game with a bone bruise in his knee. I’ve been waiting to see if anything comes out on his availability before pulling the trigger on this article. It’s basically like trying to write a Purdue preview without knowing the status of Braden Smith.

I’ve been watching the odds for this game. Purdue is currently a 13.5-point favorite, and I’m going to go ahead and assume Vegas has Claude being out baked into their line and will adjust my preview accordingly.

USC Without Desmond Claude

Assuming Claude is out, that makes USC’s last game against Northwestern a valuable data point. Purdue had no idea what Iowa was going to look like without Freeman in the lineup, but they’ve seen USC play recently without Claude. Northwestern, minus their star Brooks Barnhizer (out for the season), knocked off USC, minus their star Desmond Claude, 77-75.

What’s interesting about Claude’s replacement, Penn transfer Clark Slajchert, is that he led USC in scoring with 24 points in 30 minutes of playing time against the Wildcats. In the four games prior to Northwestern, he scored a combined 17 points in 33 minutes off the bench, including a three-minute cameo in USC’s 85-69 loss to Wisconsin. While Claude is USC’s best player, I’m not sure there is another team in the country with a backup point guard possessing Slajchert’s experience. He started all but one game for Penn over the previous two seasons and averaged 18 points and 3 assists while shooting 42% from deep last season. I’m not sure why Eric Musselman chose to recruit a starting-level point guard and then tether him to the bench, but it’s paying off for him at the moment.

Inserting Slajchert into Claude’s spot changed the USC offense against Northwestern. Slajchert is a knockdown shooter, but he’s not much of a facilitator. Instead, 6’7”, 220-pound power forward Saint Thomas took over the role of facilitator against Northwestern. He finished the game with four points, eight assists, and four turnovers. Meanwhile, Slajchert went 4-for-4 from deep and 5 of 7 from inside the arc, with two assists and a turnover.

Thomas poses a unique problem for the Boilermakers in USC’s preferred five-out offensive system. He’s perfectly capable of running the high pick-and-roll and did so quite often against Northwestern, but he’s at his best when matched up on a smaller guard because he goes directly to the box and posts up, changing USC’s offense into more of a four-around-one offense. He had a couple of assists in the open court and off dribble-drive kick outs, but his ability to pass off the low block is what makes him tough to guard. If you bring a double team, he will find an open shooter. In fact, he would prefer that you bring the double team because he’s better at passing off the low block than scoring. Thomas had eight assists against Northwestern but only scored four points on 2-of-7 shooting from the floor. Thomas had more assists than shots in 40 minutes of action. Without Claude, the offense runs through Thomas one way or another. He’ll either be up top running the pick-and-roll, or he’ll be on the block looking to post up a smaller guard and draw the double team.

I’m not exactly sure how Coach Painter is going to go about guarding Thomas. He’s a 6’7”, 220-pound athlete who averaged 20 points and four assists last year for Northern Colorado. His scoring hasn’t been consistent this season, but when he’s cooking, like he was against Wisconsin, putting up 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting, including hitting 2-of-3 from behind the arc, or against Iowa when he scored 24 points on 9-of-10 shooting, which included going 3-for-4 from three. He came close to a triple-double against the Hawkeyes, tacking on seven assists and nine rebounds to go along with his 24 points. With Claude out of the lineup, Thomas becomes USC’s most valuable overall player, and I don’t see any great matchups for him on the Purdue roster. He’s too tall for Braden and too physical for Fletcher. I assume Cox will start on him, and I assume Thomas will immediately call for a clear-out and start backing him down when the 6’7” senior finds himself matched up with the 6’3” freshman. Cox has more than held his own on defense this season, but this might be his toughest test to date.

This a game where Purdue could use Cam Heide’s athletic ability, but you give up a ton of rebounding, defense, and … believe it or not … scoring, when Heide is in the game playing power forward instead of Furst. Still, I think Purdue may be willing to make some trades in those areas to keep Cam on the court. I don’t see much of a choice.

I’ve spent a good bit talking about Thomas because his role changes significantly without Claude on the court, but USC has not shortage of talent. 6’6” freshman Wesely Yates III was a four-star, top-100 player coming out of high school, and if anything, he’s outplayed his ranking this season. He’s second on the Trojans in three pointers attempted (73) and is hitting at a 40% clip. His shooting, paired with his ability to drive the ball and finish at the rim, puts the defense in a bind. He’s the last person you want to help off of, because he can either hit the three, or he can pump the three, send the closeout defender flying by, and then attack the basket. Like Thomas, he’s the sort of player that Purdue doesn’t particularly have an answer for on their roster … unless Myles Colvin can shake out of his funk.

The two remaining starters that I haven’t mentioned, as you can see from the roster above, Rashaun Agee and Chibuzo Agbo, are both long, athletic wings. Agee soaks up the majority of the minutes at center for USC, but that’s only for the sake of listing someone at center. Last season he played some center for Boise State and now he gets to call himself a starting Big 10 center at 6’8”, 220 in Musselman’s positionless basketball set up. Agbo is another 6’8” athlete who nominally plays small forward in Musselman’s five-out, positionless basketball offense. He leads the team in three-pointers attempted with 135, and is hitting at 36%. Agbo was one of the best shooters available in the portal after knocking down 70-of-175 attempts (40%) and he’s picked up right where he left off for the Trojans.

In terms of bench production, there’s not much to talk about. In their loss to Northwestern, 6’5”, Yale transfer Matt Knowling received 32 minutes of playing time after receiving nine total minutes in their previous two games. Knowling was on the 2022-’23 All-Ivy league team and was on the 2022 All-Ivy League Tournament Team. He averaged 12 points and five rebounds last season for Yale. He’s not a shooter by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s a solid rebounder, and that’s an area where USC is in desperate need of help.

Outside of Knowling, 6’8” freshman wing Kevin Patton Jr. scored four points and recorded three blocks in 10 minutes of action. Patton Jr. averaged 10 points per game at San Diego last season as a freshman averaging 26 minutes a game. He’s getting less than 10 minutes of action this season for Southern Cal. Sometimes, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the portal. The only other player that touched the court was senior St. Francis (PA) and UMass transfer Josh Cohen, who made a three-minute cameo. The 2022-23 NEC Player of the Year averaged 22 points and eight rebounds for St. Francis before averaging 16 points and 10 rebounds for UMass last season. If USC needs him off the bench to help in the paint, he’s certainly not lacking experience.

That’s a bunch of words, but my main take away for USC is similar to my main takeaway on Iowa. I don’t think USC is a great team or even a good team most of the time, but they’re a particularly dangerous team against Purdue because of their size at guard. That takes a hit with Claude out, but the Trojans can (and will) put an entire team of long wings on the floor at one time. When that happens, they’re going to hunt Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer and try and get them isolated on the perimeter or in the post and they have multiple options to achieve that goal. When the help comes, they’re going to find an open shooter, and Purdue is going to need them to miss a couple open threes.

USC is a dribble-drive heavy team and can attack the rim from all five positions and Purdue isn’t great at defending the dribble drive. That gives the Trojans a fighting chance in this game despite the absence of their best player.

USC on Defense

This is going to get funky. Musselman has multiple defenses in his bag and won’t hesitate to break all of them out in a single game. In their upset win over Michigan State on February 1, they packed the paint (something Musselman calls “paintball” in his press conference) and held the Spartans to 64 points on 45% shooting from inside the arc. They don’t have traditional size on the interior, but they have plenty of long-armed athletes capable of clogging up passing lanes and making it difficult to get a clean shot. I expect them to try the same thing against Purdue until/unless the Boilermakers can prove their perimeter shooting woes are a thing of the past.

In addition to their “paintball” defense, Musselman also has a matchup zone in his back pocket. At one point, I thought Purdue was immune to zone defenses because of their shooters, and I hope that’s still the case. I expect to see more zone from USC than any other team because they’ve got the length at every position to pull it off and they desperately need to avoid foul trouble because of their short bench. Look for them to try and hide players in foul trouble within their zone.

Again, things will be much easier if Purdue hits a couple of outside shots early to loosen up the defense instead of waiting until the second half to find their stroke from the perimeter. If USC is allowed to clog the lane without punishment, they’ll be in this game at the end.

USC’s Fatal Flaw

The Trojans lost to Northwestern for one reason, and one reason only: they are wretched on the defensive glass. Against the Wildcats, they gave up 23 offensive rebounds and lost the total rebounding battle 43-27. The problem with having a bunch of wings on the court is that they don’t like to rebound. Nick Martinelli alone pulled down ten offensive boards. To put that into perspective, he had nine offensive rebounds total in his previous ten games. This is a game where Caleb and Camden might do some serious damage on the offensive glass.

Prediction

Ken Pom

Purdue – 80

USC – 67

Confidence – 87%

Drew

Purdue – 87

USC – 67

This game would be different if Claude was playing and USC weren’t a thin team playing their second game of a mid-west swing. They’re not a good defensive team and if Purdue gets rolling, I don’t think there is much they can do to stop the Boilermaker offense, and USC will fall farther behind trying to catch up.

I will add this: I think Purdue is going to win (and win big) but, and this is clearly a big “but” because I’m calling for a 20-point win but if Purdue is cold from deep and USC is able to build a wall and keep the Boilermakers out of the paint, they could pull the upset. I still don’t trust Purdue against teams built like this on the perimeter, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt in this one.

I hope to see y’all later tonight in the open thread. I’ll be hanging out.