Our seldom exploited Achilles heel...

[lbodel]

If you think back to Atlantis and the Tennessee game, it was in bright red flashing lights for us all to know what a huge problem was: rebounding.

The team has without a doubt made progress in this department, but also has not faced many great rebounding teams. Michigan out rebounded us 36-29. Maryland out rebounded us 37-34, but had 16 offensive rebounds. We matched NW in rebounding and out rebounded Nebraska by 9.

So really only one of those games did we have any sort of advantage.

I call it our seldom exploited Achilles heel because we also managed to win all of those games. However, 3 of those games were close games that could have gone either team's way in the last 2 minutes of the game.

We have yet to face any of the top 4 teams in Big Ten rebounding offense. And we've only faced one of the top 4 in rebounding margin. In conference play stats only, we have yet to face any of the top 5 teams in rebounding offense.

Granted, some of these teams aren't necessarily good overall teams (i.e. Rutgers, Iowa), but rebounding can obviously lead a not great team to having success just based on chances they have and can help propel an upset.

While Minnesota is certainly not what it was in terms of rebounding, they are on this list. Which is what prompted my thoughts - but you have to think that rebounding will be an issue again at some point and can be our kryptonite in single-elimination formats.

 

[Mandeville LA]

I went back and looked at the stat line from both games that we have lost. Rebounding may have been an issue, but from what I could tell we shot about 10% below their average for the year. I can remember witch game was what but Purdue shot 28% from three in one and 37% overall in the other. If they would have just made their average they win both games.

 

[JohnnyDoeBoiler]

If you think back to Atlantis and the Tennessee game, it was in bright red flashing lights for us all to know what a huge problem was: rebounding.

The team has without a doubt made progress in this department, but also has not faced many great rebounding teams. Michigan out rebounded us 36-29. Maryland out rebounded us 37-34, but had 16 offensive rebounds. We matched NW in rebounding and out rebounded Nebraska by 9.

So really only one of those games did we have any sort of advantage.

I call it our seldom exploited Achilles heel because we also managed to win all of those games. However, 3 of those games were close games that could have gone either team's way in the last 2 minutes of the game.

We have yet to face any of the top 4 teams in Big Ten rebounding offense. And we've only faced one of the top 4 in rebounding margin. In conference play stats only, we have yet to face any of the top 5 teams in rebounding offense.

Granted, some of these teams aren't necessarily good overall teams (i.e. Rutgers, Iowa), but rebounding can obviously lead a not great team to having success just based on chances they have and can help propel an upset.

While Minnesota is certainly not what it was in terms of rebounding, they are on this list. Which is what prompted my thoughts - but you have to think that rebounding will be an issue again at some point and can be our kryptonite in single-elimination formats.

Purdue also typically shoots, for a game, over 50%. There simply are not a lot of rebounding opportunities when you shoot at a high clip along with the way Purdue plays defense (typically Purdue likes to get opposing teams in a place where they are scrambling and taking uncharacteristic shots...which can lead to a frenetic style of play and more rebounding opportunities).

I agree that Purdue's achilles this season is rebounding and some of that has been relieved by Vince's uptick in his rebounding numbers....but rebounding is truly a team goal and one that needs to be done as a team to be successful. Typically, if Purdue is rebounding at a nominal rate (let's say -2 or better) along with shooting their average (roughly 50% from the floor) AND not turning the ball over (~10 per game), Purdue won't lose many games the rest of the season...and those are all things this team is capable of doing on a nightly basis against any one.

 

[lbodel]

Purdue also typically shoots, for a game, over 50%. There simply are not a lot of rebounding opportunities when you shoot at a high clip along with the way Purdue plays defense (typically Purdue likes to get opposing teams in a place where they are scrambling and taking uncharacteristic shots...which can lead to a frenetic style of play and more rebounding opportunities).

I agree that Purdue's achilles this season is rebounding and some of that has been relieved by Vince's uptick in his rebounding numbers....but rebounding is truly a team goal and one that needs to be done as a team to be successful. Typically, if Purdue is rebounding at a nominal rate (let's say -2 or better) along with shooting their average (roughly 50% from the floor) AND not turning the ball over (~10 per game), Purdue won't lose many games the rest of the season...and those are all things this team is capable of doing on a nightly basis against any one.

I mean, when looking solely at offensive rebounds - sure. That's not the same as rebounding offense (that's how many rebounds you get total).

On the flip side, Purdue is 2nd in the conference in field goal percentage defense. If we're making opponents make less shots than they are taking compared to almost every other Big Ten team - we should in theory be getting additional defensive boards based on that. Michigan was +3 on offensive rebounds and +4 on defensive rebounds. And we had basically the same FG attempts and FGs made numbers. So that's just being out rebounded.

When you look at the Butler game - Purdue shot 15% better than Butler overall. We were out rebounded by 6, but actually were +5 on defensive boards. Butler was +11 on offensive boards. That helps show that shooting differential. That being said, any time you are out rebounded by 11 on the offensive glass, it's not a good story no matter what the shooting percentage. Butler didn't shoot THAT bad.

 

[Wolegib]

I also remember those games! We could not buy a bucket and didn't rebound our misses! It appears Edwards and company have done a much better job of rebounding their misses. Tenn also beat us with physical in your face style of defense on our guards and they were not prepared to handle it

 

[Erock_94]

rebounding looks ok to me, many opponents try to jack threes because they get nothing down low and in turn there are a multitude of "spank balls" hard off the rim that a good percentage of the time go to the offensive team who are not really in position for a traditional rebound lol I'm so happy with this team I just laugh

 

[BigRed3588]

Well, the upside for Purdue is that they have the size to fix this problem. If a lot of the offensive rebounds given up are from 3’s, Painter just has to teach his guards to stay on the shooter and collapse as the ball comes off the rim.

On another note, I’ve only seen Purdue in spurts this season. I didn’t realize Haarms was 7’3”. Painter certainly has a knack for tracking down giants.

 

[depthcharge623]

If we want better rebounding, give Eastern and Eiffert more minutes.

 

[Mackeyman]

If we want better rebounding, give Eastern and Eiffert more minutes.

Garbage time aside, every single one of Grady's minutes comes at the expense of Vince, so more Grady wouldn't help our rebounding.