KU-Purdue by the numbers

photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas head coach Bill Self, right, and assistant Kurtis Townsend chat at half court during a day of practices and press conferences prior to Thursday's game at Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo.

On the surface, today’s match-up between top-seeded Kansas (30-4) and No. 4 seed Purdue (27-7) in the Midwest Regional semifinals at Kansas City’s Sprint Center seems like a clash between two completely different teams.

On paper, however, these two teams appear much more similar than many are saying.

From both scoring in the 80s and shooting similar percentages all over the floor to impressive defensive numbers and closer-than-expected rebounding totals, the Jayhawks and Boilermakers have at least as many things in common as they do differences.

To take things a step farther, KU coach Bill Self has stressed throughout the week that even though the talk has been about Purdue’s big front line — and understandably so — the two teams even play similar-looking lineups for a good chunk of the time.

“They’re not a big time shot-blocking team,” said Self, whose team actually blocks more shots per game than Matt Painter’s squad. “They’re a wall-up team. What gets lost a lot is Purdue plays, a majority of the time, the same way we do, with one big and four guards…. There’s more similarities in how the game will start than what a lot of people think.”

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the numbers.

Points per game

KU: 83.4 PU: 80.1

FG percentage

KU: 49.1 PU: 48.1

3-point FG percentage

KU: 40.6 PU: 40.4

Free throw percentage

KU: 67.6 PU: 75.9

Rebounds per game

KU: 38.9 PU: 37.9

Offensive rebounding percentage

KU: 38.3 PU: 32.5

Assists per game

KU: 16.2 PU: 18.4

Blocks per game

KU: 4.7 PU: 2.6

Steals per game

KU: 7.0 PU: 5.1

Scoring defense

KU: 72.0 PU: 67.5

FG percentage defense

KU: 41.7 PU: 41.7

3-point FG percentage defense

KU: 35.2 PU: 32.4

Turnover margin

KU: +0.5 PU: -1.1

vs. current AP Top 25

KU: 6-2 PU: 3-4