The Three Pointer: Purdue (6-1) vs. Ole Miss (6-0)

NCAA Basketball: Oral Roberts at Mississippi — Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

Purdue will play for their third straight holiday tourney title against a familiar foe in Chris Beard who is now with Ole Miss

The Purdue Boilermakers got another big day from Trey Kaufman-Renn and his 22 points in their opening victory of the Rady Children’s Invitational against NC State, which means they’ll face the Ole Miss Rebels in the championship game. The Boilers also got a big game from Cam Heide as he scored 15 points that were highlighted by two dunks in transition. The Boilers have not had big games from Braden Smith or Fletcher Loyer in the last several games and will need them today against a ranked Rebel squad.

Ole Miss is led by Chris Beard, the former head coach at Little Rock, Texas Tech, Texas, and is now in his second season in Oxford. They have not played the schedule that Purdue has with BYU being their most difficult test to date with BYU (36th) and Colorado St. (115th) being their only games against opponents rated in the top 200. As a comparison, this will mark the fifth game against an opponent inside the top 100 with Marshall ranking 154th being the only game outside of that mark.

A quick turn around for today so let’s jump into ‘The Three Pointer.’

1 | Limit the Turnovers to Less Than 10

Purdue really hasn’t gotten a reprieve from the teams that will provide the toughest tests for them from a defensive standpoint with Marquette, NC State, and now Ole Miss ranking as some of the best at turning their opponents over. Ole Miss will come into this matchup ranking 15th in the country averaging 17.50 forced turnovers per game and rated 1st in turnover percentage according to Kenpom. That means that a team like Purdue, with veteran guards like Smith and Loyer, need to limit their turnovers.

The one piece in this that may play into Purdue’s favor is that Ole Miss does not seem likely to try and turn those turnovers into fast break chances where they rank 174th and average 11 points per game in that regard. However, Ole Miss is averaging 83 points per game which ranks them 56th in the country. Ole Miss seems interested in making sure they remain as efficient as possible on offense where they have an adjusted efficiency rating of 115.6, good for 36th in the country (Purdue is at 119.6 and ranked 8th). Ole Miss also ranks 196th in adjusted tempo (Purdue is 336th).

Matt Painter has constantly preached how this team is good enough with the ball that they can play games without turning the ball over. Against NCST, the Boilers turned it over just 6 times and allowed 8 fast break points to a team that was one of the nation’s best at those two categories. Purdue needs to continue being a team that turns it over less than 10 times per game as their offensive efficiency can overwhelm opponents when those opponents aren’t gifted extra possessions (like they did against Marquette).

2 | Get Fletcher Loyer Going Early

The junior guard has been absolutely lights out from behind the arc this year so far going 14-24 for 58.3% but has struggled of late to find quality shots as opponents are doing everything they can to prevent him from getting the ball. That means it may be up to Smith and TKR to find Loyer backside in the corner or on a lift screen at the top of the key to get good looks. The thing is, Loyer has been incredibly effective still as he has flashed a better ability to get into the lane to finish.

Loyer has already gotten to the free throw line 30 times this season and connected on 25 of them (83.3%). As a comparison, Loyer took 97 and 101 in his first two seasons so it is obvious Loyer is being more intentional to still be effective in ways when opponents take away his shot from behind the arc. The one thing he needs to do is use his pull up jumper more and not rely on his floater as much as he can get stuck amongst the trees and have some poor judgement inside.

Loyer’s 3pt percentage would rank him 4th overall in the country if he had taken enough shots to qualify. His decision making has taken a huge step forward and he is seeing the entire game while on the floor at the shooting guard position. Purdue would do well to find him open shots early on to get him involved and allow his play making to set the tone for the Boilers.

3 | Rebound, Rebound, Rebound

That was an aspect that Matt Painter really harped on early in the season in post game interviews, stating his team just didn’t rebound the ball well. After five games, he felt he had enough data to really start making informed decisions about lineups and seems to have found one that not only is his best offensive unit but also the best rebounding one. With Heide and Colvin starting, the Boilers appear to have really helped their rebounding issues.

Against NCST, Purdue just seemed to have a better overall effort and concentration in rebound on offense and limiting second chance opportunities on defense. Purdue grabbed 13 offensive rebounds, and although it only relayed to 9 second chance points, those came at key points in the game to hold on or extend leads. Overall, however, Purdue outrebounded NCST 38-28 and only allowed 9 offensive rebounds. That’s going to be important, not just against Ole Miss, but for the rest of the season.

Ole Miss isn’t a great rebounding team coming in at just +2 rebounding margin for the season. Purdue needs to continue the trend of high effort to leverage their efficiency on offense at every turn.

And 1 | Defend the 3pt Line

One piece to Purdue’s defense this season has been their ability to defend the 3pt line well. Purdue is ranked as the 14th best 3pt defensive team allowing opponents to shoot 25.6% on the season. Some of that may be luck but most of that is the way that Purdue is trying to defend opponents this season and the defensive growth of Loyer, Colvin, Smith, and Heide along with the addition of Harris and Cox.

Ole Miss will enter the game shooting 35.1% as a team behind the arc but have three players averaging over 40% in Jaylen Murray, Sean Padulla, and Jaemyn Brakefield. Both Murray and Brakefield are starters and along with Malik Dia (38.5%), that is a formidable group of shooters that Ole Miss can put out there. That being said, they struggled against BYU going just 5-17 and nobody outside of Murray and Padulla hitting a shot there but they have had games of 9, 9, 10, and 13 so far this season (Purdue has had 9, 9, 11, and 11 along with a recent string of lower totals of 6, 6, and 5).

Players to Watch:

Sean Padulla | Guard | 6’1 190 | Senior | 14.2pts, 4reb, 3.2ast, 2.8stl, 41.7% 3pt

Padulla, a transfer from Virginia Tech, has been a welcomed addition for Ole Miss. The point guard can do it all for the Rebels and he plays a valuable role for them averaging a team high 33.3 minutes per game. This is a game where having three or four different kinds of defenders to throw at Padulla comes in handy.

Jaylen Murray | Guard | 5’11 175 | Senior | 14.8pts, 2.3reb, 4.2ast, 1.3stl

If the name sounds eerily familiar, Murray was on that St. Peters squad that defeated Purdue in the first round of the NCAA Tourney back in 2020. Although a freshman on that team, he did score 6 points in that upset. Murray has now been with Ole Miss for Beard’s two seasons and has been an important piece in that program in those two seasons. Murray is a near 47% three point shooter and leads the team in scoring.

Matthew Murrell | Guard | 6’4 200 | Senior | 13.2pts, 2.6reb, 2.4ast, 26.3% 3pt

Murrell is in his 5th season at Ole Miss and has previously been their leading scorer. This season, his backcourt mates have seemingly picked up the slack and they form as good of a trio of guards in college basketball. Murrell is a capable 3pt shooter although his percentage has dropped to 26.3% from last season’s 39.8%.

Prediction:

This is a tough one because Ole Miss is coming off a tough matchup against a very talented but young BYU team. Ole Miss relies heavily on their guards and outside shooting but seemingly are built similar to Purdue in wanting to be as efficient as possible on the offensive end. The biggst key in these matchups may actually be the previous schedule and Purdue has the advantage in that regard.

According to Kenpom, Purdue will be playing their fifth top 100 team in the past six games with Marshall checking in at 154th with their average opponent rank overall currently stands at 105. Ole Miss has played just one top 100 game this season with their second highest ranked team being Colorado State at 115th. The Rebels average opponent ranking is 196. That is a vastly different schedule when it comes to preparing you for big time matchups.

This should be a good game and a great chance for Purdue to build confidence heading into their two December B1G games against Penn State and Maryland. TKR holds a distinct advantage in this game in the post and Purdue will likely ride him to another victory by using him in the low post and stretching the opponent’s big man out to the arc to open up the lane.

Purdue needs their big three to all show up in this one and their previous work in big games says that can.

Purdue: 81
Ole Miss: 74