If Purdue doesn't get out of their funk, I could see them dropping the @Illinois or vPSU games.
It feels for Purdue like that 2nd half of the Michigan was them firing their whole wad. They haven't been the same since. They struggled in the Indiana, Maryland, and Rutgers games, and then seemed to start strong against OSU and MSU but fade late in the games. They had a double-digit lead over OSU with 10 to play and lost, and seemed to control the flow of the game against MSU for 30+ minutes but lost. Their 3pt shooting has been MIA since the Michigan game (31.6% against MSU? Not going to win like that).
Even worse, it seems like in addition to trending down offensively, their defense has suffered. I think part of this is by opponent design, trying to spread the floor as much as possible to negate the paint presence of Haas/Haarms. But Purdue was top 5 in defensive efficiency prior to the 2nd Michigan game, and they've dropped to 13th. They had been as low as 16th I think after the Maryland/Rutgers game, so maybe they're trending back in the right direction, and held both MSU and OSU under 70, but still they don't look like they did a month ago.
The team of a month ago should blow out every remaining team on the schedule. The team of the last 5 games will be lucky to escape that run 4-0.
I wouldn't read too much into their shooting Saturday afternoon. MSU sold out against the three point shooters, and was willing to let Haas have whatever he wanted inside. As good a day as he had, he really needed to be better to force MSU to come out of that defense. He had 25 points, but on 22 shots, and only had 5 rebounds and 1 block, with 2 turnovers. His 54% from the field was in worst in Big Ten play when he had more than 5 attempts. So that equals 24 possessions that ended with the ball in Haas' hands, and Purdue averaged 1.04 PPP on those. That's about 0.12 PPP below their average. May not sound like much, but Purdue is 5th in the nation in PPP, and 1.04 would be good for #123. It's rare that Purdue's offense is LESS efficient when it ends in Haas. For comparison, on Wednesday he scored only 18, but scored 1.2 PPP on possessions ending with him, actually above their season average. So while he had a big day, he was taking 2s, not 3s, and not shooting at anywhere near his typical efficiency.
That said, as I've mentioned here many times, I'm not sure I can think of a team in a long time with as much interior depth as MSU has. They rotated Jackson, Ward, Schilling, Tillman and Goins all on him, fresh defensive bodies just cycling in, and most teams cannot do that. Anyone else tries that, they'll get in foul trouble, or they'll get just as tired as he does. Or it'll render them useless offensively. I came out of that game MORE confident in Purdue's ability to make a run. I think what Painter might try to do is buy Haas one additional rest period, I think that would have gone a long way. The first time he went Haas on the bench for an extended period, MSU abused Haarms, and I think it scared him off, but Haarms did much better the second time.
