No. 8-ranked Purdue rolled into the Bryce Jordan Center for its Big Ten opener against Penn State men’s basketball with one of the top offenses in the nation.

Knowing how physical the Boilermakers would be, head coach Mike Rhoades prepared his Nittany Lions for a defensive grudge match.

Averaging just 11 turnovers per game during its 7-1 start to the season, Purdue featured an offense led by Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year Braden Smith and forward Trey Kaufman-Renn, but a feisty Nittany Lion defensive unit suffocated the Boilermakers en route to an 81-70 upset win.

The Boilermakers turned the ball over 24 times Thursday night, 14 of which came in the first half.

“The first half was the best half of defense we played since I’ve been here. That’s the standard of defense that I want us to have,” Rhoades said. “These guys told themselves, ‘If you take that defense on the road or anywhere else, that’s always going to give you a chance to win.'”

Applying pressure on the entire length of the floor has been a staple of the Nittany Lions’ program since Rhoades took over before last season and despite Purdue being a slow-paced team, the press applied by the blue and white proved effective once again.

“I thought we set the tone with our full-court defense. We made it hard for them to get in their offense,” Rhoades said. “We say, ‘Deny and disrupt with great discipline.’ I just thought we did that a lot today, and that was huge.

While the Nittany Lions’ full-court pressure didn’t force any 10-second violations, their defense also caused problems for Purdue once the Boilermakers got into their half-court sets.

Due to early foul trouble, seven-footer Yanic Konan Niederhauser only played 20 minutes, but Puff Johnson, despite being 6’8″, stepped up to man the paint.

Guarding the 6’9″ Kaufman-Renn, who was averaging over 19 points per game coming into the matchup with Penn State, Johnson took away four steals while only committing three fouls.

“[Kaufman-Renn’s] a good player, so I knew when I was on him to do my work early as you should with most good players because if they catch it in the place where they want it, then that’s just their sweet spot and they can get to anything they want, especially how strong he is,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s fundamental defense was crucial in slowing down Kaufman-Renn, but overall grit also led Penn State to smother the Boilermakers on the defensive end.

Purdue head coach Matt Painter said Penn State’s offense, which shot under 50% from the field, was “just OK,” but that the defense was “great.”

Painter, who’s coaching in his 20th season, said his team was outwilled by the blue and white, and the fight Penn State showed is what led to the wide margin of victory.

“Sometimes you go out there and it’s not your day, but, man, you’re not getting an offensive rebound on me, and if that ball is loose, I’m gonna get it,” Painter said. “We didn’t have that fight to us, and that’s what you have to have to win.”

Freddie Dilione V, who had 14 points and two steals for Penn State, said the gritty mindset that Rhoades has instilled in the team has been effective in helping it win games.

“We’ve just got to come in every game and just punch everybody in the mouth,” he said.