The Boilers started off slow in their B1G home opener but looked more like itself in the second half as they started on a 21-0 run. That would inevitably turn into a 48-19 start to the second half when Head Coach Matt Painter put his walk-ons in the game with 2:04 remaining. Purdue was a blistering 1.846 points per possession up until that point of the half.
Purdue would be led by Braden Smith’s 15 point, 6 rebound, 12 assist, 2 block, and 5 steal night. That is a stat line that is more on the level of what was expected of the preseason B1G and National Player of the Year. The key was that he finally got the support from those around him after the entire team struggled in the first half.
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Let’s take a look at the game against the Gophers ‘Behind the Numbers.’
12
With his 12 assists against the Gophers, Braden Smith moved his season total 91 and his career number to 849. He’ll remain at #2 all time in B1G history but sits just 41 behind leader Cassius Winston’s 890. He now moves into sole possession of 32nd on the all time NCAA list and is 227 behind the NCAA mark of 1,076 set by Bobby Hurley.
His behind the back passes are becoming a nightly occurrence.
20.4
Purdue returned back to form in the second half against Minnesota and ended up getting 22 total assists as a team. As mentioned previously, the single season team record is 720 set in 2023-2024 while averaging 18.5 per game. So far this season the team is averaging nearly 2 more per game at 20.4.
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200
With his 5 steal performance, Braden Smith now becomes just the third player in program history to reach 200 career steals. His 200 place him third behind Brian Cardinal (259) and Chris Kramer (273). That is another program record to keep an eye on as he could very well get close to the career steals mark if the Boilers can make deep runs in both the B1G and NCAA Tourney. To get there though he will have to break his own single season record of 78 that he set last season by 12. That would be the 4th best single season total in B1G history.
1500, 800, 500
This seems to be a game that featured some big moments for Braden Smith. Not only did he pass 200 steals and nearly grab his first triple double (15/6/12), Smith also passed 1,500 points for his career. When you combine the 200 steals that Smith now has, he may have become the first player in NCAA Men’s Basketball history to achieve 1,500 points, 800 assists, 500 rebounds, and 200 steals.
21
Purdue struggled in the last several minutes of the first half and instead of taking a commanding lead into the second half, they instead struggled to a 35-32 lead. The uneasiness of Mackey Arena was apparent during halftime but any causes for concern were wiped away very, very quickly. Over the first 6:27 of the second half, Purdue would rip off a 21-0 run to blow the game wide open. According to Evan Miya (@EvanMiya), anytime a team goes on a 10-0, that is labeled as a kill shot. That’s something that is pretty common place in today’s landscape of college basketball.
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What isn’t as common is the avalanche, or a 20-0 run. With the 21 straight points that went unanswered by the Gophers, Purdue now has three such instances this season (Minnesota, Texas Tech, and Eastern Illinois). What is a 30-0 run you ask? Well, that is now famously known as a ‘husky’ with the most recent major instance of that occurring in the NCAA Tourney in the game between the UCONN Huskies and Illinois.
23
For the fifth time in their first ten games this season, Purdue has outrebounded their opponent by a margin of +18 or more. Against Minnesota, Purdue held a +23 rebounding advantage (46-23) with 14 of those coming on the offensive glass. With that kind of domination, Purdue not only leveraged that to a 16-6 advantage in second chance points, Purdue just didn’t allow a lot of opportunities for the Gophers to extend possessions.
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Purdue now holds an overall rebounding advantage of 406-289 for an average of +11.7 per game.
1.724
That may not seem like a high number but trust me, it is. That 1.724 is the points per possession Purdue averaged in the second half. That includes the fact that TKR & Cluff played only 9 minutes and the walk-ons started going in with 2:04 left in the game. Prior to that? The number was an absurd 1.820. Let’s put that into some perspective.
An average college men’s basketball team will likely average 1.00ppp to 1.15ppp over the course of an entire season while elite offensive teams will generally be between 1.18ppp – 1.30ppp. For Purdue’s main players tonight in the second half, their 1.820 would mean they performed 60-70% higher than the elite offenses. To give you a better idea, there have been times when Purdue has been at 2.0 for most of a half this season as well.
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3
To round out the domination tonight, 3 different Purdue players registered a double-double. Braden Smith had 15 points and 12 assists, TKR had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Cluff had 14 points and 11 rebounds. That type of shared scoring is what makes Purdue such a hard team to defend for a full 40 minutes. In fact, this was the second instance of three players recording a double-double in the same game and the fourth time since 2021. From 1978 to 2021, Purdue didn’t have a single game where that had occurred.
