PORTLAND, Ore. — At 3:51 p.m. on Wednesday, following practice and a post-workout snack at Chipotle, the Purdue team bus pulled up to the north end of a Hyatt Regency not too far from the Willamette River. Players and staff disembarked to a lobby with soft lighting and Steely Dan playing over the speaker system. Grade-school boys playing foosball and silverware clanking inside Bridgetown BBQ provided most of the noise in the space. A stark contrast to the atmosphere of the program’s last trip to a multi-team event, which involved meandering through half-full blackjack tables and tirelessly chirping slot machines just to get to a film session.
Relative calm a day before the rowdy PK85 showcase was fitting. Purdue again will introduce itself on a national stage this week, one way or another. But Purdue is also very much not where it was a year ago.
That group made as much noise at the Hall of Fame Tip-off as Mohegan Sun casino’s Wicked Wheel, establishing itself as a title contender and never truly fading during the regular season. That team knew exactly who it was, that early. This group starts two true freshmen guards. That alone makes this a growth business, by design. The results have been good — three wins, a top 20 offense, a top 25 ranking — but the process of identity confirmation is far from over. In fact, a stacked event like the Phil Knight Legacy tournament might be the true beginning. “It tests a lot,” senior guard David Jenkins said. “We’re going to really see where we’re at. Even if we go 3-0 in this tournament, there are going to be a lot of things we’re going to need to work on regardless. There’s always time for us to get better.”
The truth is out there, or at least bits of it scattered around this bracket. But it’s not really about knowing everything. Not in November, not with this roster structure. It’s about knowing more, and setting the idealized version of A Matt Painter Team against whatever this team is, at this point, and measuring the distance in between.
Reality tells us Painter’s best teams recently have been defined by borderline absurd offense: 30 wins and No. 2 nationally in adjusted efficiency in 2017-18; 26 wins and No. 4 in 2018-19; 29 wins and No. 2 again a year ago. The defense is fair enough, and usually, some singular talent leads the way. Well, so far, Zach Edey has been the load-bearing structure. So far, the offense is fine, if not the spitting image of vintage Purdue. So far, the defense is fair enough or maybe better, particularly at the 3-point line and at the rim. But a new context awaits.
First comes West Virginia, a KenPom.com top 40 team, on Thanksgiving. A semifinal matchup against Gonzaga, in the KenPom top three, might follow. A level of competition that makes everyone take inventory, for better or worse. “I don’t think we know who we are,” Painter said Wednesday, sitting outside a meeting room in which Nike reps were presenting his players with another round of swag. “I think we know where to go with the ball, with Zach Edey. We know we have to establish him, but we also know that’s not the only weapon we have. So those other weapons can come out when we play off of him, or we run other stuff to try to utilize the skill set of other people. It’s just trying to get that balance.”
📍: Portland pic.twitter.com/5quXKBwotu
— Purdue Men’s Basketball (@BoilerBall) November 23, 2022
It also figures that Purdue still would have stuff to figure out in late November. This event was bound to be an inflection point as soon as Painter decided to fast-track a backcourt of Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith and their zero combined minutes of college basketball experience, even if it’s maybe less a surprise than it seems for a program as apt to redshirt a freshman as it is to hand him heavy minutes.
Painter had a feeling these two guards, in particular, came equipped with processors that would flatten the learning curve. Smith’s father played college basketball. His mother was Miss Basketball in Arkansas. Both are high school coaches. Loyer, meanwhile, had an NBA scout for a father, a former Purdue volleyball assistant coach for a mother and an older brother, Foster, who is a former Michigan Mr. Basketball and a Division I guard first at Michigan State and now at Davidson. “People say those things don’t matter,” Painter said. “Yes, they do. That competitive juice doesn’t matter? It does matter, and it’s going to come out.” The Boilermakers coach also happens to believe both were hilariously underrated in recruiting rankings (Loyer was No. 94 in the 247Sports Composite, 102 spots above Smith), which naturally set the bar lower, at least from the outside looking in. But Loyer approached competition on the EYBL circuit fearlessly. Smith approached everything fearlessly. They’d have to earn minutes at Purdue, but there was no internal bias against the possibility that they would.
Both seized on that belief, too. “I’ve always pictured in my mind that it was possible,” Smith said. “Coach Paint and all the other coaches were saying it doesn’t matter how old you are. If you’re good enough to play, you play. That was a huge confidence booster.”
“No matter where you go, it’s not going to be easy,” Loyer said. “It’s just going in with a positive mindset. You’re not going to have a good game every night, you’re not going to have a good practice every day. It’s fighting through those tough days and staying positive with yourself.”
Mastering the epic playbook was a natural hurdle. But the combination of the freshmen guards’ willingness to listen and the regularity in their effort added up. “We pay attention to competitive drills, we pay attention to how well you do in practice, what pieces kind of fit together, and they were the most consistent,” Painter said. “They both earned it. They’re both very sure of themselves, but they’ve been really consistent.”
They’re the avatars for Purdue in 2022-23, walking embodiments of the questions everyone is asking. But, also, through three games, they’ve been a caffeine boost, filling in one of the Boilermakers’ biggest blanks: guard play. Loyer and Smith have combined to average 21 points and nearly five assists per game, with Painter confident that Loyer’s shooting (35.5 percent overall) will come around and Smith’s assist numbers (2.7 per game) will rise as Loyer and others make more shots.
It’s also helpful that they have a clear picture of how to make their on-floor life easier.
“We have an All-American under the rim,” Loyer said.
Edey is, in every sense, one of the biggest known quantities anywhere. Averaging 10 more minutes a game hasn’t affected his productivity; he averaged 30.3 points and 16 rebounds per 40 minutes in a time-share last season and is at 27.9 points and 18.4 rebounds per 40 with sole ownership of the primary big role. When the highest-usage player on the roster takes 28.4 percent of the shots when he’s on the floor, and he hits 65 percent of those attempts, the floor for team-wide offensive efficiency is pretty high.
But … we have questions.
Loyer is taking 30.2 percent of the shots when he’s on the floor and has a ho-hum effective field goal rate of 46.8 percent. What evidence is there that most freshman guards get more efficient as the competition level increases? Smith is a less ambitious shooter — only six attempts per game so far. He’s hit 45.5 percent of his looks from long range, but that’s a little deceiving, with 11 total attempts and a 3-of-4 showing last time out. It’s not a sure thing that the rates would be steady if he shot more, and he might not be wired to be that guy, anyway. Meanwhile? As of Wednesday, Purdue’s 7.7 made 3-pointers a game rank 173rd nationally, and its long-range shooting percentage of 28.8 ranks 215th.
Again, confidence that it will happen — “It ain’t going to rain forever, man,” Jenkins said — but a waiting game until it does.
“What really gets hindered early in the year is shot selection,” Painter said. “Decision-making isn’t as good because the roles aren’t quite defined yet. Roles are being defined right now. And it normally takes losses to get those defined the way they need to be. We’re trying to work through that.”
The idea that this can be another high-end Purdue offense team is tenuous. Which, of course. It’s been three games. But the Boilermakers take care of the ball and score inside the arc and apply a reasonable amount of pressure to get to the free throw line … and absolutely none of that can change, even to just maintain the level. Then they need to find the perimeter threats, posthaste, lest Edey get surrounded by three or four sets of arms every time he touches the ball.
Essentially, there are less givens than usual. It could be OK. It could not be. The only guarantee is four nights in Portland revealing the depth of the difference. “You find out a lot about your team,” Painter said. “There’s teams that play well in these things and it’s the highlight of the season. There’s teams that struggle and it’s a wakeup call, and then it really transitions into having a better season. And sometimes it doesn’t matter, right? It just is what it is.”
Purdue likes who it is well enough after three games. We’ll see how it feels after three more.
(Top photo of Fletcher Loyer, left, and Zach Edey: Michael Hickey / Getty Images)
