The first half didn’t go like either team expected. Purdue dominated the glass with Trey, Braden, and Cluff combining for 17 boards after the Boilermakers looked allergic to rebounding in their first two
contests. Meanwhile, Alabama, a team shooting a combined 30% from deep through two games, could not miss from deep, connecting on 10 first half triples, including three from their front court duo of Aiden Sherrell and Taylor Bol Bowen. It’s almost like both teams spent their game prep working on things they struggled with in previous games.
One player who didn’t struggle in the first half was Trey Kaufmann-Renn. The senior Boilermaker showed up seasonable late to the season after missing the first two games with a hip ouchie, but he showed at the perfect time for Matt Painter and the Boilermakers. He was unstoppable in the lane, torturing the Crimson Tide bigs with herky jerky post moves and silky soft touch around the rim. When he wasn’t bumping and grinding down low, he was showing off his range. Connecting on one of two from deep and swishing a couple of his patented push shots in the lane. He finished the half with 15 points and eight rebounds.
While Trey was cooking the Tide in the lane, Aden Holloway was dicing up the Boilermakers from the perimeter, hitting four of six from deep on his way to a 14 point first half. Meanwhile, his running mate Labaron Philon, uncharacteristically struggled from the floor, only managing two points in the opening stanza.
It’s funny. If you told me Purdue dominated the glass in the first half and Trey put up 15 and 8 I would assume the Boilermakers were up double digits. That’s doubly true if you told me Philon was held to a single basket. At the same time, if you told me Alabama drained 10 3’s in the first hal I would assume the Crimson Tide was up double digits. All the first half weirdness ended with Purdue heading to the locker room with a 43-41 lead.
After a relatively quiet first half from Braden Smith (for his standards), the best player in college basketball came out of the locker room looking to score. In fact, after watching Trey go to work in the first half, Braden and Fletcher both looked to get into the scoring early, with Smith, Loyer and Cox putting in the first ten points of the half, putting Purdue up 53-48 at the 16:12 mark. Unfortunately for the Boilermakers the halftime intermission did nothing to cool the Tide from deep.
Taylor Bol Bowen continued his hot shooting, draining Alabama’s first three off the half at the fifteen minute mark. Latrell Wrightsell thought that looked cool, so he did the same thing on Alabama’s next trip down the court to give Bama a 54-53 lead. The teams traded buckets over the next five minutes, with an Aiden Holloway jumper giving the Tide a 61-57 lead at the 11:34 mark. That’s when Braden decided that he had seen enough, and took the game over.
Two innocuous Braden Smith free throws with 11:26 started the reaction, and a three at the 11 minute mark put him into full nuclear status. The best players show up at the biggest moments, and Smith once again proved to be one of the best to ever do it in college basketball. In case you missed that proclamation, let me spell it out for you again.
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Over the last eleven minutes of the game, the best player in the nation played like the best player in the nation. Braden scored 14 points down the stretch. More importantly, after an Alabama seven point run tied the game at 80 with 1:42 remaining, Smith didn’t blink. Despite the Bama crowd’s howls, Purdue’s point guard scored the next four points, finding his way to the rim for a layup, and getting into the paint, using his pump fake to get the defender in the air, drawing the foul and draining the free throws to give Purdue and 84-80 lead with 40 seconds remaining.
You would assume Braden would help Purdue navigate the final 40 seconds, but in a strange end to a strange game, Oscar Cluff, the Boilermakers transfer center, sealed the game with his defensive rebounding. He pulled down a couple huge boards, got fouled, converted three-of-four from the line, and turned the last 30 seconds of a back and forth college basketball game into a forgone conclusion.
Folks, I obviously don’t know how this season will end, but after getting an up-close-and-personal view of this team…I will be extremely surprised if it doesn’t end in Indianapolis.
