Still Time for Purdue to Achieve Ultimate Goal

“It’s a disappointing thing when you have a goal and then it’s not there anymore,’’ said Purdue coach Matt Painter after the Boilermakers came back to beat Northwestern Wednesday night, 70-66, in a game that they led for only five minutes and six seconds. “But the big goal is still there. It’s still something for us. We just have to get better in terms of our discipline and our focus on the defensive end. We’ve got to play through some of our misses, and not have the turnovers like we had in the first half. Our focus needs to be on getting better each game.’’

The Big Ten scheduling was set up for Purdue. The Boilermakers played the three likely rivals for the title — Michigan, Michigan State and Illinois — all at home without having to return. They shockingly lost them all at Mackey Arena. Add in a one-sided nonconference loss to Iowa State and the Boilermakers have dropped four home games. 

The Boilermakers end the regular season at home against Wisconsin Saturday. 

Zach Edey isn’t walking through Mackey anytime soon. His mother, Julia, was in attendance Wednesday and will be there Saturday to support Zach’s former senior teammates Fletcher Loyer, Trey Kaufman-Renn and Smith. But her 7-foot-4 son is not eligible.

And that means the Boilermakers must find a way to get Oscar Cluff, Daniel Jacobsen and Kaufman-Renn to buy in even more defensively and, of course, posting up on the offensive end. Painter was imploring Cluff to run the floor and get to the post during the Northwestern game. 

All of this is fixable, especially with Smith’s ability to drop dimes (now in fourth place all-time, and likely to be the second all-time assist leader behind Duke’s Bobby Hurley when the season ends), Loyer’s timely shooting and the ability of C.J. Cox to get hot. Cox scored 27 points (5 of 8 shooting from deep) to bail out the Boilers Wednesday. 

Painter said guarding the basketball and keeping opponents out of the paint had been his most pressing concern of late. 

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“We’ve got to do a good job on the basketball and making people score over us,’’ Painter said. “We can do that. We rebounded the ball well. We should have seven or eight turnovers. At the end of the day, I think that’s what it doing to help us — doing a better job on the ball, doing a better job of keeping the ball out of the middle of the floor.’’

Cluff, a rugged, 6-foot-11, 255-pound Australia native who transferred from South Dakota State, can be everything Painter needs — if he can stay out of foul trouble. “When he rebounds and plays for us, he gives an element that really helps,’’ Painter said. 

Kaufman-Renn must have Cluff alongside to take him out of guarding the more physical post, and also allowing him to freelance offensive and spin his way to buckets. 

Smith will get him the ball. He will deliver it to Loyer, Cox or Omer Mayer, who can bury shots off the bench.

The decision-making by the Boilers was much better down the stretch. That led to good spacing and open looks for Cox or Cluff. 

The Boilermakers were rattled a bit with the loss at Ohio State. The comeback against Northwestern shouldn’t be taken lightly. Sure, the Wildcats are in the bottom four in the Big Ten, but Northwestern still has the league’s scoring leader in Nick Martinelli and has been a tough out in the Chris Collins era at Welsh-Ryan Arena. The Wildcats had Michigan down 16 in the second half before, as Collins said, they were overwhelmed by the Wolverines’ size and depth. The three Purdue seniors who started their careers in West Lafayette had never won at Northwestern — losing twice in the first two seasons when Purdue was No. 1 each time. They didn’t play at Northwestern last season. 

Painter said having a grinder in this final week was exactly what Purdue needed. We shall see.

Purdue now has a more difficult road to a Big Ten tournament title, most likely playing on Thursday instead of Friday and needing to win four games, not three.

Purdue’s seeding has also taken a hit. The Boilermakers have dropped down to a No. 3 seed in my latest bracket. They should likely be somewhere on that line. 

That’s still high enough for Purdue to make a run in March. Giving up on the Boilers because they didn’t meet the expectations of a preseason No. 1 probably wouldn’t be a smart move. 

The Big Ten regular-season goal is gone. But the ability to win a tournament title, in Chicago next week or in the weeks ahead in March Madness, is hardly erased. 

The three seniors, along with Cluff, will be celebrated Saturday. Smith, Loyer and Kaufman-Renn have been a part of yet another incredible era of Boiler ball. They suffered through the humiliation of losing to a No. 16 seed as a No. 1 as freshmen, but then turned around to play for the national title against UConn a year later. 

They were within a whisker of beating Houston in the Sweet Sixteen last year and would have likely been the favorite against Tennessee in the Elite Eight.

They have been surpassed in the Big Ten by Michigan, got beat by Illinois and Michigan State at home, too. But there is still plenty of time for this senior crew to cement their legacy in West Lafayette. 

“Win or lose, they show up the next day, they watch extra film, they get extra shots in, they care,’’ Painter said of Smith, Kaufman-Renn and Loyer. “It bothers them when they lose. They are team guys. They put a lot of time into it. They want to be pros, but they’ve been all about this program with their leadership and showing up every single day.’’