Four Themes: Purdue basketball’s off-season, which starts now

Months prior to another much-anticipated season, Purdue’s men’s basketball team is back on campus virtually intact from last season, with its whole team on campus except for freshman Myles Colvin (USA Basketball obligations). The Boilermakers began summer training earlier this week and practice for the first time as a full group Wednesday evening.

Here, GoldandBlack.com breaks down four key storylines for Purdue basketball as summer practice tips off on Wednesday.

(Please keep in mind that three-point shooting and NCAA Tournament success and such things are not questions that are answered in June and July.)

THE POWER OF CONTINUITY

While much of the country spent the spring and early summer assembling transfer-wire pickup teams, Purdue added one transfer (Lance Jones) but returns all but two rotation players from last season. Colvin, Jones and redshirt freshmen Camden Heide and Will Berg are the team’s four newcomers, but “new” is relative when Jones has played four years of college basketball and Heide and Berg were in the program last season.

More: Lance Jones breakdown

Purdue this season will be a test of how much personnel continuity and chemistry matter these days, because it is not just the same team as a year ago, but on paper, arguably a better one.

Notable: Last summer Purdue was wracked by idled personnel, as half the team was sidelined by injury. Now only Berg (foot) is sidelined (that we know of.)

BEING DIFFERENT

Look for Purdue — so reliant on Player-of-the-Year Zach Edey last season, and for good reason — to make efforts to mix things up some offensively to manufacture added balance, to be harder to prepare for and to take some of the load off Edey’s shoulders, capable as those shoulders may be. We’d expect Purdue to use Edey away from the basket a bit more — ball screens, dribble hand-offs, etc. — and empower its guards even more than last season. Matt Painter and his staff will ask for more from Braden Smith as a scorer and it’s fair to suggest Fletcher Loyer becomes even more of a featured player.

Those two players’ improvements from last season is probably the single-biggest key for the Boilermakers now.

MAXIMIZING FRONTCOURT ASSETS

With Edey back, Purdue again has a good problem to have: Too many valuable pieces up front, too few minutes. Edey’s a great player and veteran forward Mason Gillis is a known commodity and probably peaked in terms of his development, but Purdue will put under the microscope the best fits for Caleb Furst and Trey Kaufman-Renn in the context of playing on an Edey-led team.

Furst played almost exclusively forward last season and Kaufman-Renn almost exclusively behind Edey at center. Maybe that flips some this season if it becomes evident that Edey and Kaufman-Renn can play side by side without offensive spacing blowing up and if defensive matchups seem palatable.

Both players will get enormous opportunities in August when Purdue plays its exhibition games overseas, as it’s expected that Edey will miss the Europe trip due to obligations with the Canadian national team, GoldandBlack.com has learned.

SPREADING WINGS

One of the most notable new looks for Purdue this season will be its athletic transformation on the wing, where it’s hoped that Colvin’s and Heide’s size and athleticism will provide threats as fast-break finishers and interchangeable defenders. On-boarding those two as rotation pieces, at minimum, will be a focus this summer.

Purdue obviously hopes to be a better defensive team this season. That falls on everybody in the rotation, but Colvin and Heide have the tools to be part of the solution.

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