The Three Pointer | Purdue (19-6; 11-3) vs. Wisconsin (19-5; 9-4)

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The Boilers will look to bounce back inside Mackey Arena against a surging Badgers program

Following a difficult road loss to the Michigan Wolverines, the Purdue Boilermakers return back home to take on the Wisconsin Badgers in hopes to maintain contact at the top of the B1G standings. The loss to the Wolverines was made doubly tough because the Michigan State Spartans also lost which would have meant a victory would have placed Purdue at the top by themselves with a 1.5 game lead with just six games left. Purdue will have to refocus itself with a stretch of six games that could determine if the Boilers slide into a surprise 1 seed or as a lower 3 seed.

Wisconsin is definitely not the Wisconsin of old this season. Although they are still strong defensively, they aren’t trying to win games in a ‘first to 60’ type manner. In fact, this Wisconsin team is a very efficient offensive team at 10th in Kenpom’s offensive efficiency rating and playing a much higher tempo. This is, however, still a Greg Gard program whose foundations are built on playing hard and aggressive so the Boilers will need to come prepared.

Wisconsin is led by a set of guards in John Tonje and John Blackwell who both average more than 15 points per game. The two lead guards for the Badgers provide a good 1-2 punch that is followed up by some traditional Wisconsin big men who are able to step outside and shoot well from behind the arc in Nolan Winter and Steven Crowl. They will enter ranked 16th with an opportunity to pick up the biggest win of these season.

Purdue has two likely All Americans leading them in Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn along with sharpshooter Fletcher Loyer providing a bulk of the scoring. The issue for the Boilers has been the supporting cast who have struggled to score consistently outside of freshman guard CJ Cox. Notably, Myles Colvin and Cam Heide have struggled over the last several games and are needed headed into the final stretch of the season.

Let’s jump into ‘The Three Pointer.’

1 | Defend the 3pt Line

Wisconsin will enter the game at Mackey as the best three point shooting team in the B1G during conference games. The Badgers currently shoot 39% from behind the arc and the ability to shoot is up and down the lineup. Winter and Crowl, the Badger big men, shoot 39% and 32.6% while guards John Tonje (40/2%) and John Blackwell (35%) prove that point. The worst shooter, by percentage, is that of Max Klesmit who sits at 28.7% on the season.

The Badgers aren’t afraid to shoot and will do so from behind the arc at any point in the shot clock. It forces a lot of stress on opposing defenses who aren’t accustomed to starting two bigger front court players that can defend big men who can stretch the floor. Purdue, for all of their deficiencies on the defensive end, don’t lack mobile bigs who can step out to defend. The issue for the Boilers is that they have a poor interior defensive shooting percentage (55.5%) that ranks them 14th along with the worst block percentage at 5.5%. To compare that block percentage, Wisconsin is the second worst at 12.6.

The Boilers have to be very versed in how they are defending players at and beyond the three point arc. Against players like Blackwell and Tonje, a fast and hard closeout could leave them susceptible to drives into the lane while soft closeouts with low hands against Crowl and Winter may lead to easy shots with time. Help side defense, jumping passing lanes, and being fundamentally sound as a unit is incredibly important.

2 | Force 13 or More Turnovers

The Badgers don’t turn the ball over and that’s something that has been a staple of that program all the way back to before Bo Ryan. This season the Badgers turn it over an average of just 10.1 times per game, good for the 334th lowest in the country this season. To compare, the Boilers are almost even with 10.8 per game. However, there appears an important trend that the Boilers could exploit.

Although Wisconsin hasn’t had many games where they couldn’t control turning the ball over, when they have turned it over 13+ times they are just 2-2. Those came in wins against Rutgers and UCF and losses to Marquette and UCLA, with a season high of 16 against Rutgers. They also all came away from the Kohl’s Center in Madison with three of them being true road games.

Purdue is the best defensive team at turning over their opponents with 14.5 averaged per game in B1G play and 8.4 steals, both ranking as the best in the B1G. Purdue has turned those into scoring opportunities that are very calculated in increasing their tempo from what can be explained as patiently opportunistic. This disruptive defense is led by Braden Smith who is averaging 2.5 steals per game but freshman CJ Cox and Gicarri Harris have also taken to the rigorous on ball defensive responsibilities. However, Caleb Furst has been a surprising defensive leader averaging 1.4 steals per game in B1G games.

3 | Get Scoring from the Bench

The Boilers are getting the kind of high level consistency from Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn that leads to All American status. The two are combining for 37.5 points, 10.6 rebounds, 11 assists, and 3.6 steals in B1G conference games and that’ll likely mean both find themselves on the B1G All 1st Team. When combined with Fletcher Loyer’s consistency and the scoring that Cox and Furst have given, the scoring load from the starters have been enough to largely win games this season.

The issue came to a head against the Wolverines as the bench of Harris, Colvin, Heide, and Burgess provided zero points. That isn’t acceptable against any sort of team with a pulse and doens’t bode well heading into the B1G and NCAA Tourney. For the Boilers to make the kind of tourney runs that they are capable of, which have shown to be a legitimate Final Four type team, the bench has to score.

One option that I pointed to is the possibility of playing Brian Waddell, the 6’7 junior who has shown some ability to be a shooter and ball handler in limited minutes. If you go back to his freshman season, whispers were exiting the early practices of him being very impressive in those two things and also rebounding the ball above the rim. Those are things that this team seem to lack off the bench as Heide and Colvin have, to say it nicely, have struggled with.

The issue is that Waddell has obviously not received much playing time in big moments but he isn’t going to be needed in ‘big moments.’ Those big minutes are going to be held for Harris, Loyer, Furst and to Heide and Colvin, but Waddell’s presence may be what those two sophomores need to push themselves out of the slump they are experiencing in B1G play with Colvin shooting 11-43 (25.6%) and Heide 4-27 (14.8%). Sometimes getting out of a slump requires turning the heat up on the seat you are sitting on.

And 1 | Limit John Tonje’s Impact & Make Him Inefficient

Tonje is in his 6th season of college basketball; no really. With that experience, Tonje has evolved into a player who has really improved his draft stock from being largely unknown to being a potential fringe first rounder in the upcoming NBA draft. Starting at Colorado State, Tonje spent last year at Missouri before injuring his foot and being awarded an additional year. He flashed a bit in his final year at Colorado St. but seemed to struggle at Missouri before his injury. This year, he has shown a vast improvement that has led Wisconsin beyond what was expected.

Tonje, although lacking an elite first step, is capable of scoring at all three levels but does struggle to score in traffic. He has good size at 6’5 220lb but can have a tendency to force his scoring at times like at Illinois where he was 5-15 to score 14 points but suffered 4 turnovers as well as a game against Marquette where he was just 3-11 for 14 points and 5 turnovers. Can CJ Cox, Gicarri Harris, Myles Colvin, and Braden Smith do that? That would be the hope.

Matt Painter has long stated that the kinds of defenders that can just turn off the water of opposing scorers are rare like Rapheal Davis and Chris Kramer. CJ Cox looks like he could become that kind of defender for primary ball handlers and Harris could develop into a bigger defender, but Purdue doesn’t have THAT level of defender this year. So the hope is to make scorers like that inefficient and limit their effectiveness to impact their teammates scoring as well. That’s where Purdue has been really good and forcing others to step up and score when that isn’t their primary role but Wisconsin does have Max Klesmit who seemingly has a tendency to come up big in those situations.

Players to Watch

John Tonje | Guard | Senior | 6’5 218 | 18.6pts, 4.8reb, 1.8ast, 40.2% 3pt

What hasn’t been said about the senior guard that I haven’t said above? Tonje is having an All B1G caliber season but with the talent at the guard position around the conference, he may find himself dropping to the 2nd or even 3rd team. This is probably CJ Cox’s first draw and will provide a great measuring stick for the freshman guard near the end of his first season.

John Blackwell | Guard | Sophomore | 6’4 203 | 15.3pts, 4.7reb, 2.2ast, 35% 3pt

Blackwell has had a really strong second season in the B1G. Had it not been for Tonje’s emergence, Blackwell may very well be averaging over 20 points per game and be staring at a 1st Team B1G type season. Blackwell had a big increase in his production going from 8 points per game last season to over 15 this season. Blackwell and Tonje are almost carbon copies of each other which makes having the bigger guards difficult to defend for other teams who may be smaller at the guard positions. Blackwell probably gets checked by Smith early on.

Nolan Winter | Forward | Sophomore | 7’ 235 | 10pts, 5.7reb, 1.1ast, 39% 3pt

Winter provides a lot of issues for opposing teams because of his shooting touch out beyond the three point arc. At 7’ and 235lbs, Winter is classified as a forward mainly because Wisconsin doesn’t go with a lot of low post opportunities in their offense. Winter will likely be checked early on by TKR and Furst but Burgess will come into play here.

Prediction:

This is going to be a tough game for the Boilers as Wisconsin has some pieces that may cause them some issues, specifically having two big men who can spread the floor and hit shots from outside. Now, Purdue has shown some ability to be good against those teams but Wisconsin pairs them well with two scoring guards and a third in Klesmit who just kind of does everything everyone else doesn’t.

So far this season, Wisconsin has seemingly not double teamed the post and that plays into the hands of Purdue with TKR being a high level scorer in that regard. Can he also pair that with passing out to shooters when the opportunity presents itself? He has shown both an ability to be a high level passer but also a bit of a black hole at times. TKR should be able to rack up the buckets or the fouls if they don’t double him.

This one probably comes down to two factors though: Smith being able to control the game on both ends of the floor and the bench providing some kind of support scoring wise. If Purdue can get 20 total points from the bench, they can win an important matchup against another top 20 team. Smith is going to be able to impact the game whether he is scoring or creating shots for others, but when the opportunities he creates for others like Colvin, Heide, Burgess, and Harris are there…they HAVE to take advantage.

TKR and Smith combine for 50, Loyer tosses in three made three pointers, and Colvin or Heide have one highlight reel dunk.

Boilers: 79
Wisconsin: 73