Before his team traveled to meet No. 14 Michigan State on Tuesday, Purdue coach Matt Painter openly spoke about No. 13 Boilermakers who improved at the defensive end after allowing 94 points in a loss to the then. 16 Wisconsin.
“We have to be better at basketball,” Painter said. “We can’t get as bad as we were beaten the other night and expect to have positive results. When people constantly get angles … that’s where we have to do a better job.”
Painters could probably use the same comments for their team’s play against Rival Indiana on Sunday in Bloomington, Ind. Another poor defensive that shows a loss of 75-66 for the Spartans and probably beat the foreheads out of the big ten regular season title.
While taking a third straight loss for the first time in five seasons, Purdue Michigan State allowed 58.3 percent from the field and hit 68.6 percent of its 2-point attempts. It came to the heels of letting Wisconsin hit an astonishing 20 out of 22 (90.9 percent) on 2-point attempts.
Add a dozen turnover against Michigan State, sex from the Star Point Guard Braden Smith, so you have a recipe for failure that can cost Boilemakers some seed lines for the NCAA tournament if they can’t correct it soon.
“We just have to do a better job, when they become aggressive, not overwhelming,” Painter said about their team’s reaction to heavy ball pressure. “We will continue to screen it, do it several times to try to pull out the big ones.”
Purdue (19-8, 11-5 Big Ten) has fallen into a draw for the fourth at the conference with Maryland on the way into the weekend. A double village for the Big Ten tournament, which is given to the four best teams, which seemed safe for most of the year is now in danger of being just a single village if Boilermakers cannot fix their shortcomings.
While Purdue is trying to find its form, Hoosiers (15-11, 6-9) hope that they are not rusty. They have been vacant since February 14, when they fell 72-68 at home to UCLA, their sixth loss in seven matches. It was the beginning of a three-game home forest for a team that made their last, desperate attempt to help their chances for a large NCAA bid.
The Bruins game was the latest in a series of close losses that have not only painted Hoosiers in a corner but contributed to coach Mike Woodson’s decision to leave at the end of the season.
“If you win one or two of them, you feel good about yourself when you are in close play,” he said. “Nine out of ten times you make the pieces you need to do. The fact that we have dropped them, it has been guys looking. I am looking for as the coach when it comes to trying to get them over the finish line.”
Making it more disappointing is that Indiana spent lots of zero money to attract top transfers and postponed a flagging program list during the off -season. But the team simply has not played as well together as Woodson hoped, especially in the defensive end.
A bad defense and ball handling made the difference in Hoosier’s 81-76 loss on Purdue on January 31. Boilermakers fell 52.7 percent from the field while they committed 10 sales. Indiana hit 56.6 percent from the floor but gave the ball away 20 times.
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