Purdue Basketball Overcomes Turnovers, Survives Scare From Stingy Maryland Defense
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue seemed well on its way to another convincing win after the first half of Sunday's matchup with Maryland in front of a home crowd at Mackey Arena.
The Boilermakers, playing their third game of the week, welcomed the Terrapins to West Lafayette and shook off a stingy defense to go ahead by as many as 16 points before leading 35-21 at halftime.
But the sizable advantage was whittled away in a hurry after the break. The combination of Maryland's full-court press alongside a mixture of zone and man schemes on the defensive end of the court began to bog down Purdue's offense.
The Terrapins closed the gap by forcing mistakes while capitalizing with open-court layups and dunks. The Boilermakers finished the game with 15 turnovers in a game they never trailed. It was one the team could have put away early, but instead, another Big Ten matchup came down to the wire.
"I felt we really did a good job of getting them to take a lot of shots that they're not used to taking," Maryland coach Kevin Willard said. "I think that's one reason they had so many offensive rebounds. They had some guys in positions that, usually, when they run their offense, it's so fluid. I thought we did a good job of not letting them be so fluid."
Like it's done all season, Purdue won on the glass and got to the free-throw line en route to victory. But by the end of the game, Maryland tallied four more possessions than the Boilermakers, which included a chance to tie the game in the final seconds.
The home team hung on to win 58-55 despite the scare. There's no doubt that Purdue has executed at a high level while playing selfless basketball. That style has been ingrained in the players by head coach Matt Painter.
But no matter how efficiently the individual pieces perform on any given game day, when mistakes begin to pile up, the chances of winning quickly diminish.
"I think just me, personally, just limiting the turnovers," Purdue freshman point guard Braden Smith said after the game. "It's my job, first of all. And second of all, I should be better than that."
Just looking at the second half, Purdue and Maryland were dead even on the boards, with each recording 18 rebounds — 10 defensive and eight offensive. But the Terrapins attempted five more shots and scored six points on eight turnovers by the Boilermakers.
Maryland stalled Smith and senior guard David Jenkins Jr. from getting the ball up the floor, exhausting time off the shot clock and preventing Purdue from executing its sets with sufficient time.
As the precious seconds ticked away, the Terrapins seamlessly transitioned from a zone defense to man-to-man.
"They were in that zone, and then they matched up out of it at about 10, 15 seconds on the shot clock," Purdue junior guard Ethan Morton said. "So I think that more than just the zone itself gave us problems. The ability for them to switch defenses on the fly was tough. But it just sort of got us out of rhythm."
In the first half, every Purdue player that saw the floor recorded at least one basket. However, that was hardly the case in the second. Junior center Zach Edey scored 13 points after halftime and never left the court, but he also turned the ball over three times in the period.
When opportunities on the perimeter came to be, not one shooter took advantage. The team finished 2-of-13 from the 3-point line and went 0-for-6 from deep after halftime.
"Just make good passes. Be ready to shoot the basketball," Painter said. "They take things away, you get the ball in and they clamp. Pass the basketball out and just keep making the simple play. When people double and triple-team, it's a simple game."
Luckily for Purdue, Edey went unmatched in the first half and finished the game with 24 points on 10-of-17 shooting while pulling down 16 rebounds and going 4-of-6 from the foul line. Despite a team-high five turnovers, he was the only player for the Boilermakers to score in double figures.
It was Edey's fourth game of the season with at least 24 points and 16 rebounds. The rest of the country has 11 combined, and no player has more than one. The performance also gave Edey his 16th double-double, which is good for second in college basketball.
"You know you're a good player when you have an average game and you get 24 and 16," Painter said of Edey. "Because he was just OK today."
Alongside Edey's turnovers, Smith gave the ball away three times and three others had at least one. The Terrapins cut the deficit to as little as one point in the second half before Smith sealed the game with four free throws in the final four minutes.
The Boilermakers went 16-of-18 from the foul line and made eight in the final 10 minutes while struggling to make a shot from the floor.
Purdue now has the film to study its mistakes in an attempt to mitigate them against opposing teams looking to mirror Maryland's success.
"When you get into zone versus man, you'll have different looks," Edey said. "You'll catch the ball in different ways, so kind of getting used to that. We haven't seen much zone this year in general, but teams might start doing that against us, and I've got to be ready for whatever looks I might get."
But for now, the Boilermakers can breathe a sigh of relief after improving to 19-1 overall and 8-1 in the conference. Every other Big Ten team has at least three losses in league play, putting Purdue comfortably in the driver's seat for the time being.
For the rest of the season, this team will get nothing but its opponent's best shot. What the Boilermakers can't afford to do is beat themselves if they want to keep a firm grip on the conference lead.
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D.J. Fezler is a staff writer for BoilermakersCountry.com. Hailing from The Region, he is from Cedar Lake in Northwest Indiana and has spent the last two years covering Purdue football and basketball.