No major conference team in college basketball plays with more speed and uses a more modernized offense, prioritizing it like so many other teams. NBA teamthree-pointers and layups as the main diet for shots than Alabama Crimson Tide. But Thursday night, ironically, it was an old-school attack from No. 2. Purdue — a deliberate half-court offense with high execution, paint control and brutal physicality — that handed the No. 8 Tide its first loss of the young season.
Final: Purdue 87, Alabama 80.
Purdue won as a road underdog, and in the process proved that it shouldn't have been an underdog in this game – and perhaps shouldn't be an underdog in any game this season – because of its star power and depth. Braden Smith was the main attraction of this game: he finished with 29 points, four assists and seven rebounds. But the co-star Trey Kaufman-Renn in his first appearance of the season after injury, he was also very effective, scoring 19 points, 15 rebounds and five assists.
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Isaac Trotter
Alabama coach Nate Oats said earlier this week that Kaufman-Renn “made it” in Alabama's frontcourt last November, when he had 26 points and eight boards to beat the Crimson Tide in the West. Lafayette. It was more of the same Thursday in Tuscaloosa this time. Kaufman-Renne made nine field goals, had a plus-minus of +20 to lead both teams, and was a key component in maximizing Purdue's potent weapons around him.
Contrasting styles
Styles create fights in college basketball, which is why Thursday's battle between these two top-10 teams was such a rare event. Alabama leads the country in adjusted tempo among major conference teams, and its offensive style under Oates is simple: Take the 3-pointer or the layup, or find someone else to do it. Seeing a shot chart with a player's toe on the three-point line physically makes Oates wince.
Purdue's approach is much more nuanced. His adjusted pace ranks seventh slowest in the sport, according to the company. KenPom.com data. His focus isn't just on three-pointers and layups, but also on a clean look. Coach Matt Painter, Oates said this week, has “millions of kits and different countermeasures for everything he does.”
The result is this shot chart beauty below that couldn't be more different. As you can see, Purdue's right hand was hitting shots from deep, shots to the rim, shots around the elbows – and everywhere in between. Alabama almost always made 3-pointers, layups or shots inside the painted zone. The two attempts outside the box that weren't three-pointers will undoubtedly be flagged as disallowed in the film review. I'd bet a dollar on it. Maybe even two.
Purdue won Thursday thanks to its less modern approach, but that in no way means Alabama should consider changing its own offense. It didn't lead to a win that night because Purdue is a great college basketball team and its best players played great games. But Oates' Alabama is 13-7 in games in which his team has made 40 or more 3-pointers. Two of those losses came in overtime, two of those losses were to Purdue, and three were games where Bama was the underdog in the tip-off betting market.
This is a long way to go: Oates' formula is a winning one. You don't get to the Final Four by chance or luck.
However, Purdue's work was as efficient as that of a NASCAR pit crew. This game was not an indictment of Alabama's style, but rather an ode to Purdue's goodness. He outscored Alabama 30-22 in the paint, won the battle on the boards 52-28 (!!!!) and grabbed 19 offensive rebounds to help him score 16 second-chance points in a category that may have been the deciding factor in the outcome.
Purdue also made 23 two-point shots to Alabama's 12. Of those 23 Purdue shots, six were layups and two were dunks.
“The better team won today,” Oates said. “They beat us by 24. It's a shame.”
Purdue's key to victory
Painter and his staff are used to it and have a good understanding of what Alabama wants to accomplish offensively. They have seen this team for three years in a row and have seen the dynamism of its shooting on the road. Ironically, Painter said after the game that Purdue's plan in this game—against a team that relied heavily on threes and was very successful at making them—was to push the ball outside the paint and force them to win on the perimeter.
“We wanted to level the ball [defensively] and keep it to yourself,” Painter said. “But we didn’t want to lose sight of their big guys.” We saw in their last game that they had so many layups. We wanted to leave it around the perimeter. They made 44 threes. … But at the end of the day, outside of Holloway, no one really left us.”
Oats' initial assessment of Alabama's postgame struggles (except for the obvious rebounding issues) was more or less the same.
“They went down hard,” he said. “When they crash as hard as they do, they'll give up the three, and we raised the 44. So they packed it pretty tight and tried to keep it out of the lane.”
Purdue prepares to jump to first place
Despite starting the season 2-0, Purdue, the preseason No. 1 team in college basketball, dropped to No. 2 in the first AP Top 25 poll of the season earlier this week. This is just the second preseason No. 1 team in college basketball in two decades to fall from first place despite going undefeated. (Another: Kansas fell from first place in 2018-19 to RJ Barrett and Zion Williamson. Duke Blue Devils.)
I expect voters to correct the error on Monday and put Purdue back in first place.
With Kaufman-Renne back in the lineup, this Purdue team has proven to be every bit as formidable as we expected it to be at full strength. Beating a top 10 road team that just days earlier beat a top 5 team on the road is an incredible feat.
“They're tough,” Oates said. “They deserved to win. In sports, it's nice when a team that deserves to win wins. And they deserved to win tonight.”
