Why can't Purdue keep big leads
- Thread starter Summy1
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It is killer instinct. Though I will say it was clear there was a 180 difference in the intensity tonight than previous games. It was in the face. If you can't come to play that way every time out intensity wise then no need to play at all. They went through another emotional lay down phase for a bit and sat back. This is not how you win anything. Thankfully they snapped out of it and fought hard for the win and that was the only way it gets done.
Can't shoot consistently. When Purdue hitting threes, goodnight.
Maybe because we are playing the top teams in the country #2, #4, #8........
Right on target. Thank you for pointing out the obvious. I do think it is pretty cool that we can mix it up with these guys just two years after being bottom of the BIG. That is impressive.
We lose big leads from good teams with good coaches because they are good teams with good coaches.
It didn't hurt any that Iowa hit 11/13 3-pt shots in the second half. I doubt you will see them continue that hot, but it was enough to get them out of trouble in West Laffy.
cant wait for the Terps rematch in Mackey
This isn't a knock and I hope none of you take it as not celebrating the win, because I am. But this team appears to be a little mentally weak. They just don't have the ability to maintain intensity and carry it over from half to half. I hope that ends in the next game but it is a clear issue as this is not the first or second game Purdue has failed to really close out a team when holding a lead.
The intensity and focus in the first half is what can make this years team a final four team.
The intensity and focus in the first half is what can make this years team a final four team.
I think this has been a problem, yes. High turnovers probably correlate. But I think it is gradually improving, and I think there might just be a chance we will put it all together and peak at the right time. There are plenty of second half mistakes to watch & learn from, but at least it is a win they'll be learning from. The toughness in OT was something to be proud of... They finished with character this time; they proved they can close even coming from behind against a very good team. Can only help.
I am going to go a different way. Winning after giving up another large lead IS showing mental toughness. When they went down 5, I said to myself that this is the most important time of the season. The men bowed their backs and fought through the adversity. They still couldn't make a shot- it was all defense and free throws. That to me is the epitome of mentally tough. Found a way to win despite history repeating itself. It was a clone of the Iowa game, except the last few minutes when the men overcame and finished. I am actually glad (now) that it went the way it did- get this ghosts of the Iowa game exorcised before the tourney when that stuff happens every year.
Finally I want to give Matt a shout out for his late game management. Timeout use was effective and his defensive gameplan was solid all game. Dead ball play at the end of regulation was a head scratcher, but I wasn't in the huddle so I don't know what was drawn up. It certainly wasn't for Biggie heaving from 30'
Finally I want to give Matt a shout out for his late game management. Timeout use was effective and his defensive gameplan was solid all game. Dead ball play at the end of regulation was a head scratcher, but I wasn't in the huddle so I don't know what was drawn up. It certainly wasn't for Biggie heaving from 30'
I think it's intensity. Something happens in that locker room at halftime where we just don't come out with the same level of intensity as we had in the first half. One thing I thought was a little frustrating last night was Painter's allowing Raphael to continue missing shots in the 2nd half. In the halftime interview, he even said Raphael is a streaky shooter - when he's in a groove he's great, when he's not, he struggles. So Raphael was 7/10 in the 1st half but only 1/12 in 2nd half. Painter has to see his shot was off in the 2nd half and have the team go to another guy - like Hammons and maybe Edwards. Not saying bench Raphael, but have him focus on defense and doing other things on the offensive end. Not picking on Raphael - my comment goes to the whole team. There have been several games (NCAA game against Cincy, MD game the other day, Vandy game earlier) where we just aren't hitting the 3 pt shot and Painter allows these guys to continue to jack up 3 balls with horrible results. Get the ball down low, if that is difficult, bring in another big guy as it's hard to sag down on 2 big guys at the same time. Get somebody in there who can at least drive for a mid-range shot. But allowing us to go 3 for 25 from the arc meets the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Our offense is too streaky to hold big leads against good teams. We can have someone like RD nail 5 3's in the 1st half last night and then nothing in the 2nd. Our D is pretty consistent but our offense makes it hard for any size lead to be secure.
Can you imagine it? MSU had a 4 point lead with about a minute to go and could not hang on to it. OMG, they "must not be good enough", and they lack "mental toughness". They were playing a team ranked 10 positions worse than they were, #8 against #18. Probably it is because their coach "does not make good in-game adjustments". No doubts here!
This post gets my vote for #1 loser mentality. Wish this guy was a fan of some other school. Wait.... maybe he is?
I posted this in another thread, but there's obviously varying factors.
1. Purdue played out of their minds in the first half (mainly just Davis), MSU played like crap. More so Purdue played out of their minds (63% shooting, 75% from 3). One of the big problems of that was a lot of the amazing play was coming from 1 player - who probably wasn't going to keep it up the entire game. We've seen that before when Hummel went off in the first half (against Wisconson? Ohio State? I forget.) He went cold in the second half, Purdue blew the lead and I think lost.
It's almost bad to have 1 player, who is not your typical go to guy, have a half like that. You don't necessarily get the guys involved you want to get involved, they get too reliant on one guy, etc. We saw it in the second half - Davis didn't have a great second half offensively. But he still shot a lot.
2. Our big lead, thanks to Davis, masked a couple big issues while we were up big.
-Turnovers - Purdue had 16 turnovers compared to MSU's 9. MSU had a good game taking care of the ball - they are the worst in turnover margin in the Big Ten.
-Fouls - While it didn't affect us as much at the end, both Swanigan and Hammons didn't play a whole lot in the first half. I think they combined for 20 minutes? While Davis was humming along, we weren't establishing ourselves inside in what we knew was going to be a physical game. If Hammons could have played more in the first half, it could have really put MSU away because as we know, when he doesn't get "in the mix", he can disappear sometimes.
-Shot attempts. This has to do with turnovers, as well as MSU's bad half, but MSU actually had 16 more field goal attempts than we did. While we did win the rebounding margin, MSU did have more offensive rebounds.
-Balance. Vince has struggled the last couple games now. I talked about this after the Maryland game - we don't need to be on fire from 3, have one guard who can create shots, etc. per se. We just need someone outside of Hammons/Haas/Swanigan to do things in a game. Davis did a great job for the first half, but in the second half, we didn't have anyone really step up to the plate. We need Vince to be that guy. If he just has an average game by Vince standards - I think we'd be fine. Kudos to him though for coming through on free throws, even while having an off night shooting.
-Shot selection. There were definitely stretches of sketchy shot selection. At the beginning of the second half, Purdue was getting a little cute with their plays. Swanigan took a couple just horrific shots. And Hammons seemed to forget he played center sometimes - being nowhere near the basket when we needed to be feeding him (especially near the end when they had 2 guys fouled out and 1 with 4 fouls). We should have been feasting on that.
Overall, as I said before, it's one thing to play a bit better than you typically do and build a big lead - like the Rutgers game. We were just a flat out better team than them, we didn't do anything crazy that game, and the lead was never in jeopardy. But against a top 10 team, building a 15 point lead playing decently is tough for the other team to overcome. But if you're just playing out of your mind (and particularly just one player), it's not as solid of a lead as it seems. Especially when that top 10 team happens to be one of the best 3 point shooting teams in the country…
Can you imagine it? MSU had a 4 point lead with about a minute to go and could not hang on to it. OMG, they "must not be good enough", and they lack "mental toughness". They were playing a team ranked 10 positions worse than they were, #8 against #18. Probably it is because their coach "does not make good in-game adjustments". No doubts here!
I get what you are getting at, but losing a 4 point lead with a minute left is vastly different than an 18 point lead in the second half (for the second time this season). You can tie a game in one possession with a four point play but it takes a some what epic collapse to completely sh** the bed for a second time in the second half of a game and lose a lead of that size. It's a problem that reared it's head again but this time Purdue was able to shake it off and make plays when it had to.
My theory is that Purdue, when it shoots as well as it did in the first half of the Iowa and MSU games along with playing the style of defense they did in those halves as well, loses focus because they believe their shooting will simply carry them the second half. When that shooting doesn't carry over and the intensity/drive is relaxed or lost, it is very hard to deliver it again. When a team is able to scratch and claw its way back from that big of a deficit, they have the momentum and trying to gain a foothold is very hard. It was nice to see Purdue not rely on their offense to do that (like they did against Iowa) but rather their defense to stem the tide and gain control again.
As another poster said, the defense should always be the focus because that defensive effort in the first half is an effort that can shut down any team in the country. Play two halves like that, and I'm not upset winning games by less than 10 in the 60's all year.
I mean, if you flip-flopped the game, would people be complaining? If teams can regularly build 15 point leads in one half, why can't teams lose one? It happens more than you think.
And to be quite frank, the 18 point lead certainly was the "peak" but we held that for a matter of seconds. MSU got the lead down to 8 or 9 points late in the first half if I remember right. It's not like they were "down and out", even though at certain points in the game if you captured those points, it looked like it based on the score.
I don't think we are mentally weak I think we are tired by the last 5 to 10 min of the game. We jump out to these huge leads in the 1st half and what does Matt do for the 2nd? He severely cuts the rotation. Kendall and Dakota probably got 5 min combined after half last night. Haas probably got 5. Johnny probably 6. We cut the rotation to basically 7 guys down the stretch which just makes our guys dead tired. Davis didn't sit once in the 2nd half which is ridiculous considering Izzo found time to sit Denzel. Which probably is when Davis should of got a breather.
Good point about being tired. Although PJ did well, he looked really tired by the middle of the second half when things started to go bad. I thought Johnny did really well when he was in, so I couldn't understand why Painter wasn't giving him more minutes at least to give PJ more of a break.
Agree, we lose leads as our D gets tired and not as effective in second half...not to mention the lack of scoring @ the 1&2 catches up with us.
I will have to dispense my opinion regarding this issue. From what I've seen, every time we come out with a big lead in the first half, post-feeding becomes sloppy in the 2nd half. The opponents know that we are at our best when we play the inside-out game, so they hound our guards to force turnovers or rotating the ball outside instead of feeding Hammons or Haas. Unfortunately the strategy has worked very well so far.
PJ, as a decent point guard as he is, is too short to pass the ball inside over bigger guards. Stephens and Cline especially have done poorly feeding the post when pressured. Hill and Davis do it well but often they get swept up in their desire to drive in. Swanigan is very good here, but he unfortunately gets ball-hungry at times and tries to post up himself, crowding the lane. The only guy who has done well consistently here is Edwards, but it doesn't mean he can do it in every play.
The opponents also threaten to intercept the pass to Hammons or Haas, and sometimes our guards, in their over-eagerness to feed the post, force some passes inside and get intercepted. There is no doubt B1G is very loaded this year, and slight mistakes here and there can blow away 10+ leads so easily, as we have witness so often this season.
I have mentioned Swanigan, but he is not the only ball-hungry individual in this team. He is the only one who does it CONSISTENTLY. Biggie brings a lot to the court, but the ball-generosity ain't one of them. Sadly, our guards often fall victim to "loitering to see if he can get to shoot" symptoms more often than I'd like them to, messing up the game plan.
I'd like to stress that I don't wish to badmouth anyone. Just iterating some observations.
PJ, as a decent point guard as he is, is too short to pass the ball inside over bigger guards. Stephens and Cline especially have done poorly feeding the post when pressured. Hill and Davis do it well but often they get swept up in their desire to drive in. Swanigan is very good here, but he unfortunately gets ball-hungry at times and tries to post up himself, crowding the lane. The only guy who has done well consistently here is Edwards, but it doesn't mean he can do it in every play.
The opponents also threaten to intercept the pass to Hammons or Haas, and sometimes our guards, in their over-eagerness to feed the post, force some passes inside and get intercepted. There is no doubt B1G is very loaded this year, and slight mistakes here and there can blow away 10+ leads so easily, as we have witness so often this season.
I have mentioned Swanigan, but he is not the only ball-hungry individual in this team. He is the only one who does it CONSISTENTLY. Biggie brings a lot to the court, but the ball-generosity ain't one of them. Sadly, our guards often fall victim to "loitering to see if he can get to shoot" symptoms more often than I'd like them to, messing up the game plan.
I'd like to stress that I don't wish to badmouth anyone. Just iterating some observations.
Some of the PU players are not mentally tough, and some like Swanigan need to be told you don't take low percentage shots at the end of the game. He should have never been allowed to launch the three that allowed MSU to tie the game and take the lead. Same with Davis taking the off balance shot.
Players today with basketball intelligence are very hard to find because of AAU. The game has been dumbed down to the NBA level.
Michigan State took 16 more FG attempts than Purdue.
Purdue blows leads because it turns the ball over too much, and they become predictable on offense.
Very resilient performance by the Boilers to pull that one out, but Purdue needs more mentally strong players. I hope that will come with more experience. Davis clearly wanted it last night.
Purdue blows leads because it turns the ball over too much, and they become predictable on offense.
Very resilient performance by the Boilers to pull that one out, but Purdue needs more mentally strong players. I hope that will come with more experience. Davis clearly wanted it last night.
In all of the games Purdue lost - there is one thing they forgot to do. Go inside to Hammons. When Hammons touches the ball, Purdue makes better decisions. In the losses - there was a good 7-10 minute stretch where they didn't go it him. It's simple - feed Hammons the f@cking ball.
I absolutely expected a MSU come back last night. Not because we are mentally weak, make poor halftime adjustments, lack a killer instinct, etc. but because (1) we were lights out from outside in the first half and we had to regress back to our mean (2) MSU is a fantastic team and (3) Izzo is a great coach. We all knew they were coming back. I love the fact that they did and we won anyway. The number of posters on this site who were convinced we had already lost with around 8-10 minutes to go was pathetic.
The problem is when they double Hammons and he kicks it out and they keep missing the open shot. Purdue has to be able to hit the outside shot in order for the inside to open up.
We are losing leads to very good defensive teams. I think those teams are making adjustments that are very effective at stopping what we were doing. I think some of those teams have more talent overall than we do and when they stop what we are initially doing we cannot find another way to score.
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