Matchup Rewind | Purdue vs. Ohio State

The Boilers were able to overcome a cold start to the night and claw their way back from a double digit deficit to defeat one of the better teams in the country on the road at Ohio State. The Boilers again got a late three pointer from freshman Fletcher Loyer to push their lead to two points before holding on by playing tough defense with under 10 seconds left.

Let’s take a look back at the important matchups who ended up with the advantage.

1 | Purdue’s size vs. OSU’s lack of height

This one really got exposed after Zed Key went out with what looked like a shoulder sprain or dislocation about 4 minutes into the first half. Okpara ended up playing 30 minutes being OSU’s biggest player and did an admirable job but couldn’t make up for what they lost in Key. Purdue ended up dominating OSU on the offensive glass and had a ten rebound advantage overall in the game. Also, as the game wore on Purdue’s height inside really started to effect OSU’s shots inside after getting what they wanted in the first 10 minutes of the game.

Advantage: Purdue

2 | Defending the 3pt Arc

Purdue did a good job of running shooters off the arc and limited OSU to only 14 attempts from the three point line but the issue was they ended up making 6 of those for 42.9%. Purdue wants to run shooters off the arc and force them into mid-range jumpers and floaters but when an opponent has two guys who thrive in that type of game in Justice Sueing and Bryce Sensabaugh, they’ll give you problems. That is why those two went led OSU in scoring with 15 and 21, respectively. That being said, limiting a team to only six made threes can win you some games and Purdue was able to finally start hitting their own threes after starting 0-7. After that cold start, Purdue ended up shooting 13-24 for 54.2% and is the reason why Purdue was able to claw their way back into this game (18-39 advantage in scoring alone).

Advantage: I understand looking at the shooting percentage alone might be bad but Purdue did what they wanted to do. I give them the advantage here when looking at the whole picture.

3 | Dominating the Offensive and Defensive Rebounds

This one is easy to see because Purdue was able to grab 16 offensive rebounds to OSU’s 9 and three of those 9 came off one sequence at around the 4:30 mark of the second half. Due to that overwhelming number of offensive rebounds Purdue also dominated second chance scoring 16-4 which is largely why the Boilers ended up winning in Columbus.

On the defensive end, Purdue grabbed 21 rebounds to OSU’s 18 which means Purdue was able to hold a team that had been averaging 40.92 rebounds per game to just 27 which grabbing 37 of their own. Anytime you can outrebound a fellow B1G opponent by 10 or more, you have a great chance to win.

Advantage: Clearly Purdue

4 | BONUS MATCHUP: Boiler Bench Points

Ohio State won this matchup with 18 points off the bench versus Purdue’s 15 but a key part of Purdue’s bench in Brandon Newman was only able to play 4 minutes in the first half and none in the second due to illness. Trey Kaufman-Renn was also limited to just 7 minutes because of the need to get Edey on the floor as much as posisble to take advantage of his offensive rebounding and defensive presence. Although those two didn’t score, David Jenkins Jr. contributed 9 points off a 3-3 shooting night from behind the arc along with Mason Gillis getting 6 points off 2-7 shooting from behind the arc.

Ohio State didn’t have any major contributors off the bench but everyone off the bench scored at least 2 points with Okpara leading the way with 5. Okpara got 30 minutes last night which is way above his average because of Zed Key’s injury to his shoulder about 4 minutes into the game. With that injury, OSU needed to rely on their bench more than they were used to and they did a good job overall also providing 5 total assists and and 11 assists.

This is sort of a push mainly because Purdue’s main bench scorer was limited due to illness and because OSU was really reliant on some bench players but overall it evened out.

Advantage: Push due to similar numbers off the bench and contributing factors

Overview:

Purdue won these important matchups but it didn’t appear that way in the first 13 minutes of the game where OSU led Purdue by 12 points (26-14). In that last 27 minutes of the game, Purdue ended up out scoring OSU 57-43 and controlled the offensive glass.