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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — When All-America center Zach Edey left for the NBA after sweeping the last two national player of the year awards, some wondered how Purdue would cope.
Turns out, the plan post-Edey doesn’t appear to have changed much. It still centers around a hefty dose of feeding the ball into the middle — as Alabama coach Nate Oats learned again the hard way Friday night.
Boilermakers forward Trey Kaufman-Renn made 12 of 23 shots, scored a career-high 26 points and grabbed eight rebounds as No. 13 Purdue handed No. 2 Alabama an 87-78 defeat that was eerily reminiscent of last season’s 92-86 loss to the Boilermakers in Toronto.
“They may be the best post-up program in the country,” Oats said. “They get guys that are good at it, they know how to feed it, they know how to run actions to get in there, they know how to run the actions for the shooters when it goes in there. We saw all that last year with Edey. We didn’t think we were going to have to worry as much about that this year, so we didn’t really plan on playing a double post.”
That turned out to be a mistake.
But who could blame Oats and Alabama (3-1) after watching tape of Purdue’s first three games?
The Boilermakers (4-0) were outrebounded in two of those games, were outscored 104-96 overall and looked as though they were struggling for solutions after losing 7-foot-4 starting center Daniel Jacobsen, a freshman, in their second game with what could be a season-ending broken leg.
And while Purdue still got outrebounded, 37-35, and outscored in the paint, 38-34, this game looked significantly more promising to Boilermakers fans who have grown accustomed to their team force-feeding the ball inside in recent years.
Kaufman-Renn was at his best during a fast start before he and center Will Berg both got into early foul trouble. That gave forward Caleb Furst and freshman center Raleigh Burgess a chance to make key contributions, and both did just enough to keep the pressure on Alabama’s interior…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/no-13-purdue-rediscovers-strong-041127621.html
Author : Associated Press
Publish date : 2024-11-16 04:11:00
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