WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — There’s a well-established formula for IU’s success. Get the ball down low to freshman forward Trayce Jackson-Davis, and clear space for him to drive to the rim. It’s a simple concept that has been effective all season, and one the Hoosiers had seemingly mastered of late, winning three of their last four games before Purdue.
Every team the Hoosiers played since around New Year’s knows the formula. In theory, it’s easy to stop, but Purdue was one of the few teams that executed a near-perfect game plan to shut down IU’s frontcourt en route to a 57-49 win.
When IU has been at its best this season, the team is a bully. The Hoosiers get the ball inside and wear down their opponents with an unrelenting wave of post-ups.
But what happens when someone stands up to a bully?
The bully usually cowers while all of their toughness melts away, leaving just shock and a little bit of panic. That’s exactly what the Boilermakers did.
“If they don’t get post-ups, what are they going to get?” Purdue’s sophomore forward Trevion Williams said. “Like 80% of their offense is from Jackson-Davis.”
Every time IU got the ball in the low-post, Purdue sent a double-team.
The Hoosiers’ offense came to a screeching halt because nobody in a crimson jersey seemed to know what to do. IU kept banging its head into a brick wall while it passed the ball into the post, got double-teamed and passed it back out before the cycle began again.
Once Purdue took away the interior, it seemed like IU forgot how to play basketball.
“They trapped the post every single time they touched the ball,” IU head coach Archie Miller said. “Everything around the basket, even our uncontested ones, were rushed. They made it really hard on us and you just have to give those guys some credit.”
It’s crazy other teams still haven’t realized that doubling in the paint will probably beat IU 75% of the time. Jackson-Davis and senior guard Devonte Green are the entirety of the Hoosiers’ offense. But Green only shows up for one out of every three games, and that’s being generous.
While IU shut down star players Luka Garza and Lamar Stevens against Iowa and Penn State earlier this month and hoped the other four players on the court didn’t kill them, Purdue did the same thing with Jackson-Davis.
The Boilermakers took the Big Ten Freshman of the Year candidate out of the game and challenged the rest of the Hoosiers to step up. No one was up to the task.
IU shot an abysmal 25.4% from the field and only Green scored double-figures, while making just three shots in the game.
Poor shooting has been the story all season for the Hoosiers and one of the biggest factors holding them back from being a very good team in a down year throughout the NCAA. The Hoosiers are a horrible shooting team that ranks No. 187 in the country for effective shooting percentage at 49.1%.
Teams just need to force IU to shoot 3-pointers and live with the consequences. If the Hoosiers happen to be hot that day and start draining shots, well it just wasn’t your day to beat them. More often than not though, IU will continually miss open shots just as they did in Mackey Arena on Thursday night when a student in an astronaut costume almost made more 3-pointers during a timeout than IU did in the game.
“Let them beat us,” Purdue head coach Matt Painter said about forcing IU to shoot perimeter shots. “If they beat us versus that way, they beat us.”
The roadmap to defeating IU has been clear all season. The team has no offense outside the paint, and after the Boilermakers showed everyone the best way to defend the Hoosiers, the double-teams won’t stop coming. If IU wants to be successful down the stretch, it has to find another way to score consistently, and there might not be one.
