Defense Purdue showed Texas Tech opens new dimension of how good Boilers can be

NASSAU, Bahamas — Purdue basketball’s Braden Smith tumbled and slid backwards on the floor, then leapt to his feet to pump his fist with a victorious road.

The No. 1 Boilermakers were well on their way to an 86-56 evisceration of No. 15 Texas Tech in the Baha Mar Championship. Smith eagerly took that offensive foul a little over three minutes into the second half. It was the echo of a statement already loudly made by the end of the first half.

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Purdue nearly got into trouble one night earlier when it struggled stay composed in a tense, testy victory over Memphis. Friday night, it was the one rattling a talented opponent. It set a trap for Texas Tech and fed off that energy for its most impressive surge of the season thus far.

Heck, maybe anyone’s most impressive surge of the season thus far.

“Once you kind of get stops and are able to push transition and make a couple of shots, those eight to nine stops that we had feel like 15 to 20,” Smith said. “Momentum’s on our side, and we’re hitting shots and obviously it just swings our way.”

Purdue puts a national player of the year contender on the floor every night in Braden Smith. Friday night, it faced one. JT Toppin, a 6-foot-9 lefty who piles up double-doubles became the focal point of the defensive strategy.

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The Boilermakers were willing to let Toppin attack from the perimeter, and he obliged with an 0-for-3 night from 3-point range. When he moved inside the arc, big men Trey Kaufman-Renn, Oscar Cluff and Daniel Jacobsen took the primary assignment, with various guards dropping in to help.

That doubling typically forced Toppin to try to score through traffic or give the ball up. With 8:17 remaining in the first half, Purdue led by four in part because it had held Toppin to five points on 2 of 7 shooting.

With under 15 minutes to play in the game, Purdue led by 31, and Toppin still had those five points. In the roughly 15 minutes…

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Publish date : 2025-11-22 10:07:00

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