COLLEGE PARK, MD — Purdue men’s basketball reclaimed the form which made it the nation’s No. 1 team Sunday, and in the process, it regained its swagger.
That did not show up merely in the 93-63 pasting the No. 12 Boilermakers put on Maryland at Xfinify Center. It showed up in the assertive, confident moments with which they broke a three-game losing streak.
C.J. Cox’s early steal to spark a break leading to a Fletcher Loyer 3-pointer. Cox skying for an offensive rebound in the lane and finding Braden Smith for 3 more. Trey Kaufman-Renn tussling under the basket twice in the final two minutes of the first half, both times kicking to Loyer for more 3s.
And of course, after Maryland swatted away Loyer’s layup attempt, the senior having the last word – literally – as he scored on the inbounds while the Terrapins were still celebrating.
Purdue throttled an opponent on the boards, assaulted it continually from behind the arc and played its most cohesive brand of defense in a couple of weeks.
It rediscovered the identity from which it had strayed during that three-game losing skid. Now comes the even harder part: settling into that identity and refining it back to championship potential.
“Just starting off well and continuing the success through is good for the team,” Loyer said. “Obviously losing three in a row – you don’t want to do it. But you’ve got to flip the switch and today we flipped the switch.”
Purdue fueled win at Maryland with defense, rebounding
The phrase “hooked up” kept recurring in Sunday’s postgame news conferences. That served as shorthand for a lot of factors – defensive communication and connectivity, offensive awareness, aggressiveness on the boards – which had dissipated to varying degrees during the losing streak.
The players put a lot of those topics on the table during a team meeting last week. They also benefited from a rare double up on days off in preparation for this road game.
All of the above showed up on the floor Sunday.
Maryland guard David Coit had topped 40 points twice this season, including 43 against Big Ten foe Penn State. Purdue struggled to contain perimeter scorers throughout the losing streak – UCLA’s Donovan Dent, Illinois’ Keaton Wagler, Indiana’s Nick Dorn.
Cox took the lead on Coit, passing him off to Smith and other guards. Coit went into the final five minutes Sunday with three points and finished with eight.
When the Boilers made those stops, they made them count.
Five days after coach Matt Painter questioned his team’s toughness and effort on the boards, Purdue dominated on the glass for much of the game. Maryland brought plenty of physicality in Buzz Williams’ first game against Purdue as a Big Ten coach. Purdue matched it, even thriving there at times, such as when building a 16-3 first-half edge in second-chance points.
That version of the Boilers existed earlier this season. It began to lay out a compelling formula of elite offensive efficiency, strong rebounding and – at least in theory – an improving defense.
Painter, ever the pragmatist, immediately drew the postgame conversation back to whether those elements would have shown up without 3-pointers falling at a 15-for-30 pace.
The past three games warranted that skepticism. In the best-case scenario moving forward, Sunday’s performance suggested that identity had gone dormant, not disappeared.
“We were all locked in – it’s just as simple as that,” said Smith, who contributed 19 points and six assists. “We were talking. We were all doing the right thing, being in the right spot, making the extra plays. That’s what we need to do.”
Purdue built its torrid offensive pace off the rebounding and defensive foundation. Loyer, 5-for-21 from 3 over his previous five games, made 7 of 10 while operating within that up-and-down rhythm. His 29 points were one shy of the career high he set in the season opener against Evansville.
Kaufman-Renn, with 17 rebounds over his previous five games, grabbed 10 Sunday. It was his first double-digit game since Jan. 7, and only his third with more than three since.
Not coincidentally, when the stars and leaders looked more like their best selves, so did Purdue.
How Purdue basketball can draw on history to push forward
This particular team, collectively, had not yet encountered something like that three-game losing streak. Many of these Boilers, though, know the experience well. So does Painter, several of whose teams have successfully responded to these in-season dips.
In 2008-09, after losing three of its last four regular-season games, Purdue won the Big Ten tournament and reached the Sweet 16. One year later, successive losses to Wisconsin, Ohio State and Northwestern from Jan. 9-16 dropped the Boilers to 2-3 in Big Ten play. They did not lose again until Feb. 28 – their only other conference loss while sharing the championship.
In a nine-day period in 2014-15, Purdue lost at Vanderbilt, got smashed by Notre Dame in Indianapolis and blew a 13-point lead in a home loss to Gardner-Webb. It came back to share third place and returned to the NCAA tournament for the fist time in three years.
The freshmen from that team were seniors when they won 19 straight in 2017-18, including a 12-0 start in Big Ten play. They lost to Ohio State, Michigan State and Wisconsin by a combined eight points in an eight-day stretch. It cost them the league crown by one game, but they returned to the Sweet 16.
As helpful as those theoretical examples might be, this group can also reach back to last season. They were in the thick of the Big Ten championship race, which would have been their third straight. Then came a four-game, two-week tumble in February.
That reeling team pulled out of its tailspin in time to push eventual national runner-up Houston to the final seconds in the Sweet 16. A better break on a foul call or a better reaction to the Cougars’ pivotal inbounds play and this team might be gunning for, at worst, its third straight Elite Eight appearance.
“We called a meeting last year and everybody said what they thought,” Kaufman-Renn said. “This year I think everybody knows what they need to do. They’ve just got to be productive.
“We’re all kind of like ‘Hey, we’ve all got to be accountable to help the team win.’ It is what it is – you’ve got to be productive to play basketball. I think we did a really good job tonight.”
This team knows where it has been. It knows where it can go. It knows such a finish to the season required a return to form in crucial areas and surpassing it in others. It could not restart its season, but it could reset it.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Purdue basketball win at Maryland retains championship identity
