How Purdue Broke My Model

Before discussing the two topics involved in this post, I would like to congratulate UConn for winning their second straight championship!  It is an unbelievable feat that very few teams do, and their dominance all season paid off.

Going into the Men’s tournament each year, I have one metric that I utilize the most when projecting the winners, which effectively determines which team has the most potential NBA Draft selections out of their older players.  This has proven to be the best metric I have found; while I have only been correct with one of the past 4 winners (I had Gonzaga, Kansas, Houston, and Arizona from 2021-2024 respectively), each of the actual winners (Baylor, Kansas, and UConn twice from 2021-2024 respectively) looked amazing in this metric in particular.  Out of the teams that lost in the semifinals, Alabama was solid in this metric (I wouldn’t have predicted them since UNC and Arizona were in this region and were better in this metric) and NC State happened to be in a wacky region where I thought a team seeded between 8-13 would make it (I just couldn’t justify any of them).  On the other hand, the runner-up, Purdue, did poorly in this metric; the only player I expect has a shot of being drafted is Zach Edey, who was amazing in college, but I was worried that he could be played off the court.  On top of that, their defense also wasn’t that amazing during the season (for what it’s worth, Alabama had the worst defense out of all the teams in the tournament and still made it to the Final Four while improving their defense, so there’s that).  As such, I’ve been fascinated by how Purdue broke my model when many of the metrics I used projected them as a team that wouldn’t make it to the Elite Eight. 

 

Running their offense through Edey

This feels like the most obvious statement, but sometimes having the best player on the court is enough to win games.  It is not a new phenomenon that Purdue discovered to run their offense through Edey, but it worked for the last two seasons, and continued to work throughout the tournament.  I think he improved from last year, which is insane considering that he won Player of the Year as a junior.  This year, he was more aggressive and appeared more willing to force contact.  His free throw rate has increased significantly, which has not only allowed for more points, but also results in foul trouble (for reference, he shot 11.2 attempts a game!).  I also feel like he’s developed more as a passer out of the post as needed (part of that might be him trusting the better shooters), but he was such a great finisher that he doesn’t need to be a Nikola Jokic or Domantas Sabonis level passer by any means.  This is the perfect example of the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid), but I feel like a lot of coaches would stray from this because it failed in the past.  When you have a superstar, I think it is the right decision to build around them and optimize the star’s talent, which Purdue did.

 

Their Shooting

Last year, Purdue shot just 32.2% on 3.  As such, the paint got quite clogged pretty quickly and left Edey with limited options if he needed to kick the ball out.  While someone as skilled as Edey is able to make it work in the regular season, it often doesn’t work once consistently facing teams that are great.  This year, they shot 40.4% from 3 and appeared to prioritize improving from that, especially off the pass.  Last year, only 3 players shot at least 35% from 3, while 2 had at least 3 attempts per game; this year, 6 players shot at least 35%, with 4 with at least 3 attempts per game.  It is worth noting that they appeared to be focused more on shooting and offense than defense, as their defense was worse than it was last year, but they were so much better offensively that I thought their upside was higher (though I never would have predicted championship game).

 

Positioning Edey Defensively

Let’s cut to the chase:  Edey is not a good defender outside of the paint.  He’s not the quickest guy; while he has amazing footwork and is crafty in the paint, he has been unable to stop players outside of the paint.  While Purdue wasn’t great defensively by any means, Purdue is a good defender in the drop coverage at the college level because he has a high IQ.  I considered him a below average defender even as recently as last year, but he has adjusted in a massive way.  Now, he appears to know where defenders are going and allows them to force a shot.  Last year, I was worried that he didn’t feel confident in drop coverage and looked like he thought he was in the wrong place, but now he will position himself based on where they are comfortable with shots.  I think he will have his difficulties defending professionally, but this development makes me a little more confident that he can even have a role in the NBA, something I didn’t believe even last year.

 

A little bit of luck in matchups

Before I discuss this part, it is still would like to specify that a team still has to take advantage of the matchups that they should win in order to advance, which isn’t a guarantee by any means (just look at the Celtics last year).  I had no doubt that they would win in the first round, especially after last year’s collapse.  In the second round, I thought they would face TCU and lose; the catch is that they faced Utah State, who they beat (as I kind of figured).  They faced Gonzaga, who I expected they would beat as well.  I thought their second toughest contest was Tennessee (I thought they would lose to either Tennessee or Creighton), and they played very well against them, as Edey absolutely starred.  I figured whoever got out of their region would win in the semifinals, and they thrived in their matchup while doing everything they needed.  I thought UConn was going to be a tough matchup for them, and they played well in the first half.  The biggest issue in this matchup was that Purdue’s supporting cast gave practically nothing.

 

A little bit of luck in coaching decisions of opponents

The reason Purdue lost in the first round last year is because Farleigh Dickinson mastered the way to limit Edy defensively:  utilize pick and pops, leak out on rebounds, and take a ton of 3’s.  The number of teams that fell behind early to Purdue because they played slower on offense, which allowed Edey to get into the play.  Further, a lot of teams appeared to target Edey in the paint, which is the place that’s worst to go against him with.  I felt like UConn was the only team that had read the scouting report on Edey, and they only really appeared to utilize this in the second half.

 

 

Bonus:  An End of an Era:  Coping with Aging through the Lens of Sports

Over the past week, massive coaching news has come out in both the Men’s and Women’s game.  On the Men’s side, Kentucky coach John Calipari announced that he was leaving Kentucky and taking a job at Arkansas (it was sounding like he in some hot water due to consistently struggling in the tournament, which isn’t something I’m surprised by since my model consistently shows young teams struggle in the tournament, but what do I know).  A few days later, Tara VanDerveer, Stanford Women’s legendary head coach, announced her retirement; she retires with the record for most college basketball wins, and having led Stanford to every tournament since 1988, while also winning 3 of them.  While I originally wanted to focus more on how stupid a strategy of building a team of largely young players is if a goal is to win a championship, VanDerveer’s retirement hit me a little differently and made me think about how sports can make us feel old or have a sense of mortality (using this word a little loosely).

Like most sports fans, at a time when I started loving a sport when young, I gravitated towards certain players and became interested in their careers.  While there were random players I liked, my earliest fandom memories with baseball (which was my first favorite sport) likely started in the years adjacent to the 2004 Red Sox.  While there was a point I could tell you their entire 25-man roster (I’d certainly miss multiple players now) and a good chunk of their 40-man roster (that would be even worse for me), I also fell in love with a lot of players in the league around that time, especially since that season had some incredible seasons (look at the NL MVP results if you ever want to be amazed; the top-6 would be serious MVP candidates in most seasons, and at least 5 others could make a case to be a top-5 candidate in other years).  I honestly thought that pretty much everyone on that Red Sox team in particular was immortal and that this lineup would last forever (I was 10, for crying out loud), but I was obviously proven wrong quickly.  While several of these players were playing for longer or were essential in the 2007 World Series run, guys like Keith Foulke, Curt Schilling, and Mike Timlin were retired within a few years, and players like Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, Orlando Cabrera, and Red Sox legend Dave Roberts were all with different teams the following season.  Over the next few years, other stars nearing the end of their career during my childhood started retiring, most notably Barry Bonds, Jeff Bagwell, and Roger Clemens.  While this is a strange feeling, it got even stranger as I got older.

By the time I was in high school and college, there were several players I loved who were younger in my childhood that had started retiring.  While there was the errant star who was clearly at the end of their career and retiring (such as guys like Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr., Greg Maddux, Vladimir Guerrero, and Tom Glavine), there was a run of retirements where 2012 featured Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Scott Rolen, Andruw Jones, and Johan Santana; 2013 featured Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay, Todd Helton, Andy Pettitt, Miguel Tejada, Kevin Youkilis, Roy Oswalt, Lance Berkman, and Michael Young (I loved him for some reason); 2014 featured Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreau, Paul Konerko, Jason Giambi, Cliff Lee, Alfonso Soriano, and Adam Dunn (my all time favorite player); 2015 featured Mark Buehrle, Aramis Ramirez, and Torii Hunter; 2016 featured David Ortiz, A-Rod, Joe Nathan, Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Papelbon, Justin Morneau, Prince Fielder, Carl Crawford, Jake Peavy, and Ryan Howard; 2017 featured Carlos Beltran and K-Rod; 2018 featured Adrian Beltre, Joe Mauer, Chase Utley, Victor Martinez, and Jose Reyez; and 2019 featured Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, Dustin Pedroia, Felix Hernandez, Troy Tulowitzki, and Hanley Ramirez.  Similar things happened in the NBA, as there was a short span where Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Dwyane Wade, Dirk Nowitzki, Chris Bosh, Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, and Steve Nash all retired.  Every time a player retires, I selfishly hope that they will stick on for just a little longer, even though they often can barely function by that point (Nowitzki is the best example of that), but I think a big part of that is a sense of fear of losing a part of my childhood.

In general, growth, change, and mortality are often intertwined, but are all absolutely terrifying in many ways.  Change in general is terrifying for a variety of reasons, especially when it stems from growth and aging, as there is this fear of what’s ahead and the loss of what is comfortable.  Sports in particular can be a bit jarring from that standpoint because it is something people typically consume as entertainment to avoid these types of concerns, which makes it all the more difficult when a player is seriously injured during a game.  When our favorite childhood stars retire, there is a sort of gut-wrenching feeling in a way since we realize we are older as well, resulting in more fear (I especially felt that after A-Rod retired, since he was the last player who was in one of the big-4 leagues in the year I was born, 1994; we’ll ignore the fact that I was born in April and he was called up at the end of the season).  Even though there are new stars that have emerged in each of these sports, there is something that feels like a loss of childhood or life as we know it when a player from that time frame retires.  While we likely all reach a point where a player retiring results in a different feeling as we get older, this feeling of a childhood favorite retiring feels like a much lesser version of understanding how to cope with seemingly premature death for the first time (obviously not the same thing, but it’s the best comparison I can think of).

Even though there are several amazing coaches in college basketball (I have consistently argued that Dawn Staley might be the best college coach in the game), it feels weird that VanDerveer is not going to be one of them next season.  There is no question that she has had an amazing career and deserves an amazing retirement after doing so much for the game of basketball, but there is still a pitting kind of feeling with her not being there.  She’s been coaching at Stanford longer than I have been alive, which makes for an incredible legacy and something to get used to from a comfort standpoint.  In the big scheme of things, it is a silly thing to feel so much emotion towards, but the same kinds of things happen in music, film/TV, and any other hobby that people have:  they are methods of escaping from life until reality returns the favor by slapping us right in the face.

Were you surprised by Purdue's performance in the tournament?  Were there any retirements in sports that hit you hard?  Let me know in the comments!