WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — When Alabama basketball faced Purdue in Toronto, Canada last season the Boilermakers found success playing through superstar center Zach Edey. The two-time Naismith Trophy winner scored 35 points and propelled Purdue to a narrow win over the Tide.

The outcome was the same when the two sides met again inside a packed Mackey Arena on Friday night, but No. 13 Purdue didn’t have Edey leading the way this time as it defeated No. 2 Alabama 87-78. Despite not having as strong of a presence in the paint on paper, the Boilermakers were still able to funnel the ball inside and expose Alabama in post-up situations.

“It's early in the season. [Purdue] showed some stuff we didn't necessarily expect, and we didn't think we'd have issues with particularly the post-up stuff,” Alabama coach Nate Oats assessed after the game. “So we've got to figure it out. We don't guard post-ups much in practice. We've got to do a better job prepping our guys for this.”

Oats called Purdue the “Best postgame program in the country.” The Boilermakers leaned into that identity all game scoring 34 points in the paint and contesting Alabama’s bigs on the glass. Purdue forward Trey Kaufman-Renn led all scorers with 26 points on 23 field goal attempts.

“They just kept going to them,” Oats said. “So I don’t think they anticipated 23 shots from him, we sure didn’t. So you got 26 points on 23 shots. He had a pretty good night himself.”

It wasn’t just Kaufman-Renn boding Alabama’s bigs in the paint. Thanks to Purdue’s penetration, it was able to hit open shooters after working the ball into the lane and kicking it back out. Kaufman-Renn was also used in high-screen and pick-and-roll actions, which allowed the rest of Purdue’s supporting cast to have open driving lanes.

Oats said the Boilermakers “Defined the numbers” on non-rim 2s. When Kaufman-Renn wasn’t scoring in the paint, or Purdue wasn’t finding an open shooter, junior guard Braden Smith curled around ball screens and pulled up from the elbow. Smith finished with 17 points despite going 0-for-4 from 3-point range.

“We need to do a better job pushing them down to the rim, to some shot-blocking,” Oats said. “We didn’t. We need to be better on D. Our defense struggled a little bit last year and I think we’re definitely going to be better this year than we were last year. We’ve been better so far. This was not one of our better defensive performances but they’ve got some skilled guys that made us pay on some stuff too.”

Oats touched on a key silver lining for Alabama after suffering its first loss of the season. Despite its struggles in the lane Friday, the Tide still looks much improved on the defensive end compared to last year’s squad. Center Clifford Omoruyi was extremely impactful in the lane on both ends Friday, finishing with seven points, five rebounds and four blocks. When he came out of the game with four fouls midway through the second half, Purdue was able to expand on its run and looked much more comfortable operating without the threat of the shot-swatting former Rutgers center. Alabama was also still in the game the whole way despite having another lackluster shooting night. The Tide shot just 44.4% from the field and 31% from 3.

Purdue is going to be one of the best examples of a team that runs much of its offense through post-up actions. Alabama will be able to take away a lot of lessons in defending the rim going forward. Oats took ownership after the loss, saying the coaching staff has to do a better job preparing the Tide to face a team that’s able to slow the game down and contend with bigs in post-up situations when Alabama itself doesn’t run its offense that way.

“They get guys that are good at it,” Oats said. “They know how to feed it. They know how to run actions to get in there. They know how to run actions for their shooters when it goes in there. We saw all that last year with Edey. We didn’t think we were going to have to worry as much about it. We didn’t really plan on having a double-post and in hindsight, we probably should’ve had a little better answer for Kaufman-Renn than we did. So that’s on us.”

Oats isn’t afraid to schedule difficult nonconference games to expose improvement areas for his side. Purdue was able to exploit the Tide in a key area Friday, leading to an early-season defeat that should provide ample growth opportunities for both the players and coaching staff to build on. Oats will look to take those lessons to heart as Alabama prepares to face Illinois on Wednesday in Birmingham.

“We schedule these games for a reason, where we’d like to go against the best teams in the country and figure out what we got to work on," Oats said. "We’ve got plenty to work on after this game."