Breaking Bad

[Mandeville LA]

Is it just me, or has there been a total lack of up and down game from PU this year. The other night when VE took that lob from PJ and flushed it, I kind of thought we have been the most half court O I have seen this season. Why is this? We have big guys? true PG skills to push the ball? Not sure what it is. I am not knocking it, it just occurred to me that we fast break very little. RD and Vince are fast break guys. If any of you watched VE's tryouts during the U19 this year, he looked unstoppable on the break. RD is also very good in open floor situations.

Not trying to start anything. It just hit me in the head a few days ago that we just don't push the ball all that much. I have to think it has something to do with the focus on our bigs and how painter want to approach the game.

 

[Boiledin90]

Is it just me, or has there been a total lack of up and down game from PU this year. The other night when VE took that lob from PJ and flushed it, I kind of thought we have been the most half court O I have seen this season. Why is this? We have big guys? true PG skills to push the ball? Not sure what it is. I am not knocking it, it just occurred to me that we fast break very little. RD and Vince are fast break guys. If any of you watched VE's tryouts during the U19 this year, he looked unstoppable on the break. RD is also very good in open floor situations.

Not trying to start anything. It just hit me in the head a few days ago that we just don't push the ball all that much. I have to think it has something to do with the focus on our bigs and how painter want to approach the game.

We are a half-court team by design due to our "relatively" large front-court. Yep...that's pretty much it...

 

[Mandeville LA]

Seems to me we could surprise the crap out of some teams with a lineup of? DM, RC, RD, VE and AJ with the intent to push the ball.

 

[Do Dah Day]

Our bigs are not great at starting the break after a rebound. A rebounder who immediately starts up the floor is the start of a break. Even if he passes after one dribble - which is desirable usually. Our guys tend to suffocate the ball to make sure we hold onto it. Nothing wrong with that. As we saw in the last game, the lob and a couple of other situations allowed us to do some breaking. But it is not an integral part of our game. Many other teams use the quick 3-pointer at the end of their breaks. We don't want to do that this year. Maybe we will next year. Different personnel, different style maybe.

 

[Mandeville LA]

Our bigs are not great at starting the break after a rebound. A rebounder who immediately starts up the floor is the start of a break. Even if he passes after one dribble - which is desirable usually. Our guys tend to suffocate the ball to make sure we hold onto it. Nothing wrong with that. As we saw in the last game, the lob and a couple of other situations allowed us to do some breaking. But it is not an integral part of our game. Many other teams use the quick 3-pointer at the end of their breaks. We don't want to do that this year. Maybe we will next year. Different personnel, different style maybe.

I agree. It's just after all of the years watching PU basketball I would have thought I would have picked up on the fact that we don't break. It did not even enter my mind until the other night. Maybe its why I keep wondering why VE has some trouble getting going. I think he is really good on the break. Don't get me wrong. I understand why we don't.

 

[Mandeville LA]

Ok. Now I am starting to think about our half-to-half issues that we have had this year and am wondering if our approach is playing into the dead spots? When teams start running and gunning we are focused on controlling the ball and slowing the game down. Points can add up quickly as we have seen.

 

[Mandeville LA]

Wow. 60 views within 10 min. Some must of thought the lab was open again. Binged watched it myself.

 

[boilermike1]

I always thought that the way you punish a team that presses full court was to really push and get an easy basket or two but I have not seen PU do this at any time. This kind of feeds into the thought above lack of fast breaks.

 

[Do Dah Day]

Often announcers will list their "must do to win" thoughts. One of those thoughts is often "control the tempo," or "make them play your way." Purdue is a 1/2 court team this year. Many are, many aren't. Maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. You can't post-up in a hurry-up offense.

 

[septimusharding]

There's actually data on this at hoop-math.com.

Purdue falls around the middle of D1 with regard to the number of shots we take in transition (19.9%). And we're slightly better than average at scoring in transition with an EFG of 55.6%.

But we're very very good at scoring in the half court, with an EFG of 52.4%. It's also notable that other top teams in the Big Ten are also very good in the half court--Indiana, Michigan St., Michigan, and Maryland.

 

[Dakota Girl]

There's actually data on this at hoop-math.com.

Purdue falls around the middle of D1 with regard to the number of shots we take in transition (19.9%). And we're slightly better than average at scoring in transition with an EFG of 55.6%.

But we're very very good at scoring in the half court, with an EFG of 52.4%. It's also notable that other top teams in the Big Ten are also very good in the half court--Indiana, Michigan St., Michigan, and Maryland.

Makes sense. We also play less aggressively on defense due to the rules changes and personnel than we have in the past generating fewer steal initiated breaks.

 

[topurdue2]

Is it just me, or has there been a total lack of up and down game from PU this year. The other night when VE took that lob from PJ and flushed it, I kind of thought we have been the most half court O I have seen this season. Why is this? We have big guys? true PG skills to push the ball? Not sure what it is. I am not knocking it, it just occurred to me that we fast break very little. RD and Vince are fast break guys. If any of you watched VE's tryouts during the U19 this year, he looked unstoppable on the break. RD is also very good in open floor situations.

Not trying to start anything. It just hit me in the head a few days ago that we just don't push the ball all that much. I have to think it has something to do with the focus on our bigs and how painter want to approach the game.

I thought this was going to be something about Swanigan.

 

[mathboy]

Our bigs are not great at starting the break after a rebound. A rebounder who immediately starts up the floor is the start of a break. Even if he passes after one dribble - which is desirable usually. Our guys tend to suffocate the ball to make sure we hold onto it. Nothing wrong with that. As we saw in the last game, the lob and a couple of other situations allowed us to do some breaking. But it is not an integral part of our game. Many other teams use the quick 3-pointer at the end of their breaks. We don't want to do that this year. Maybe we will next year. Different personnel, different style maybe.

Do Dah Day is right on target here. Our bigs hold the ball and let traffic clear. Then they hand off to the guards. If you watch MSU, their bigs usually throw the ball long to someone breaking ahead. MSU probably ranks high on fast breaks.

If you bring the ball up after the opponent has cleared to the other end, your fast breaks are going to be limited to those tmies the opponent falls asleep. About once a game, RD finds the other guys sleeping and he rips end-to-end. Keep in mind that lately we have been playing some very good teams who by their nature will limit fast breaks against them.

 

[bonefish1]

This team isn't built to fast break. Our guards aren't quick enough or good enough ball handlers to start the break and put a defender in a position to pick his poison. Our secondary break is pretty good and does create some nice open 3 pt shots, but we don't have the athletes to play a 94 foot game consistently.
However.....I could see a team in the NCAA think they can run us off the floor (like Baylor tried to do a few years ago) and we end up giving them a dose of their own medicine and blow them out by 25 pts. But then again, you had players like LewJack who could go end to end at full speed and finish at the rim.

 

[honey_badger]

Better call Saul