Purdue isn’t in the position to overlook anyone in the Big Ten tournament, particularly after five losses in seven games to conclude the regular season.
Thoughts of making a deep run have been replaced with a single-game focus as the No. 6 seed Boilermakers (21-10) open play with a second-round matchup against 14th-seeded Southern California (16-16) on Thursday night at Indianapolis.
Purdue was in the running for a No. 2 seed after winning 11 of its first 13 conference games. But an ensuing four-game losing streak started the late-season slide, and now the 20th-ranked Boilermakers are just looking for one victory.
Big Ten Player of the Year Braden Smith refuses to look further down the line.
“It’s just one game at a time, and we have to be good in every single part and aspect of the game for one game at a time,” Smith said. “We’ve got to come out defensively — offensively, I think we’re fine — just sticking to our rules.
“I think if we stick to our rules, do what we did at the beginning of the Big Ten season, we’ll be just fine.”
Purdue finished the regular season with an 88-80 road loss against Illinois. The other late-season setbacks were against then-No. 20 Michigan, then-No. 16 Wisconsin, then-No. 14 Michigan State, and Indiana.
Third-seeded Michigan (22-9) will be the next opponent for the winner of the Purdue-USC clash.
Boilermakers coach Matt Painter said he doesn’t want to hear any chatter about the Wolverines.
“You win the game in front of you,” Painter said. “You think about it afterwards, you don’t think about it during … you have to win the game in front of you, and that’s where you have to keep your focus.”
Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn, who averages a team-best 19.7 points per game, didn’t stick with the script.
“Just win. Prove that you’re the best team. I think it’s as simple as that,” Kaufman-Renn said, pointing to a tournament title. “I think we have confidence that we can compete with anybody when we’re all locked in and doing our jobs. It’s an opportunity for us to show that.”
USC kept its season going with a 97-89 double-overtime victory over 11th-seeded Rutgers in Wednesday’s first round.
The Trojans had lost eight of their previous 10 games, and coach Eric Musselman said rough travel was the reason for his team’s decline.
This is USC’s first campaign in the Big Ten, and Musselman cited a road trip to Maryland (Feb. 20) and Rutgers (Feb. 23), followed by a trip home to face Ohio State (Feb. 26), before traveling to Oregon (March 1) as a killer for coaches and players.
“I’ve said it publicly and I’ll continue to say it,” Musselman said. “UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington are going to have to be three to four games better than everybody else flat out. You can argue about it or whatever — that’s a fact.”
The Trojans led for more than 35 minutes against Rutgers. Desmond Claude had 28 points and eight assists, Wesley Yates III scored 24 points, and Rashaun Agee had 23 points and 11 rebounds.
Claude said the players spent a lot of time discussing why wins have been hard to come by.
“We had to figure out why we (were) losing and how we could do better,” Claude said. “One thing we came down to is everybody could play harder, get 50-50 balls, and I felt like we did a pretty good job today.
“We wanted this game. The tournament — we thought we came in 0-0. We wanted to keep winning.”
Purdue routed USC 90-72 on Feb. 7 at West Lafayette, Ind. Kaufman-Renn had 24 points and 10 rebounds for the Boilermakers, while Yates tallied 30 for the Trojans.
–Field Level Media
