“That’s the best cutting and screening team in college basketball,” MSU coach Tom Izzo said. “I don’t care who it is, and we’ve played them all. There’s not another team that cuts and screens like that team does.” 

Though Edwards did not have a great half, or game, shooting the ball, he affected MSU’s defense so profoundly with his cuts. Though Matt McQuaid did a good job on him, he wasn’t able to deny him the ball. When Edwards got it, he distributed more, particularly in the first half, than he did in MSU’s victory in East Lansing earlier this month. 

"We work a lot on those cuts," Purdue head coach Matt Painter said. "And then when people take it away, we try to make a second cut and a third cut. Don’t let physical play get you to stop moving." 

In addition, the bench trio of Eric Hunter, Jr., Aaron Wheeler, and Matt Haarms combined for 22 points on 9-of-10 shooting in the first half. The Spartans came out without aggression, and Purdue’s role players made the difference. While they fought back hard, it wasn’t enough, and that’s due in part to the intensity Purdue played with all day.

“I felt OK coming in, they just hit a lot of shots, and we just didn’t answer,” freshman Aaron Henry said.

Henry is a young player who will get a lot out of this going forward, but he wasn’t ready for Sunday afternoon. Painter talked postgame about the long-term value of playing freshmen, but said the lessons are typically hard ones, as Henry found out today.

Bigs fall short 

MSU allowed 16 offensive rebounds Sunday, extremely uncharacteristic for a team, and program, that prides itself on controlling the glass. Painter seemed to echo the great wrestler Ric Flair in his take on how that unfolded.

“I think any team you have a team that’s been a staple in your league and have the success that they have, you’re not gonna beat them your way. You’re just not,” Painter said. “You gotta beat them at their game. You’ve gotta be tougher than them.”

The Boilermakers were tougher than the Spartans Sunday, and the rebounding edge was the easiest way to see that. Izzo said he was extremely disappointed with the effort of his bigs, but chose not to directly call them out by name. He mentioned specifically the bigs didn’t follow through with the game plan of getting higher up on Purdue’s screening action to free three-point shooters, which killed the Spartans all day.

“We were supposed to be up on those curls, and we weren’t up,” Izzo said. “That’s why we were coming north when they were going south. They were slipping (screens), we had harped on that.”

When defensive bigs don’t get far up enough, and the offenses slip screens as well as Haarms and starter Trevion Williams did, you get in bad position for rebounding. Izzo was asked about Purdue shutting down the fast break in the first half, but he pointed out that you can’t break if you don’t have the ball.

“If you don’t rebound, you can’t get your break going. They get 16 offensive rebounds, that’s a joke,” Izzo said. “We’re the best rebounding team in the league, and one of the best rebounding teams in the country. I was disappointed in our performance inside.” 

Perhaps it was fatigue, perhaps it was effort, but Nick Ward and Kenny Goins were beaten solidly by their matchups Sunday, something you haven’t been able to say about them since the first game of the year against Kansas.