Purdue Basketball Offseason Homework: Fletcher Loyer

The senior guard has turned into one of that nation’s premier off guard scoring threats, but what can he do to elevate Purdue to another Final Four?

Fletcher Loyer, Purdue’s third leading scorer from last season takes center stage in today’s installment of Off Season Homework. After starting 110 games over his first three seasons, it would be easy to argue that there isn’t much room for improvement in a single off-season for the lanky guard from Homestead.

Loyer has become one of the nation’s premier supporting players in his three seasons at Purdue and that isn’t a knock on his abilities, rather how good the players he has been around. Zach Edey, Braden Smith, and Trey Kaufman-Renn are as good at their positions as college basketball has seen over the last thirty years. What has made them that much better could easily be placed squarely on the shoulders of Fletcher Loyer as an off guard who can do a bit of everything at an extremely high level.

As a third scoring option his entire career, Loyer is a known commodity that can pop off for 20 points or more on any given night. That has happened nine times in his career with a high of 27 coming on three different occasions (Nebraska-23, Tennessee-23, Arizona-23). Overall, Loyer has 33 performances of 15 or more points in career constituting 30% of his career. That is elite level consistent scoring from your third option that most other programs just don’t have. But the career 40% three point shooter still needs to do more for the Boilers.

As the left hand man to Braden Smith, Loyer needs to become more reliable in his ability to initiate action on the offensive end. That isn’t to say he needs to become a primary ball handler because the more times Smith has the ball in his hands the better, but alleviating some of that pressure at some points throughout the game would be helpful. That is especially true as Smith becomes a better off-ball scoring threat coming off a plethora of screens from the bigger bodies Purdue is going to employ.

The main sticking point for Loyer has continued to be his defense and a lack of ability, at times, to keep more athletic players in front of him. There was a big improvement in his junior season as less teams seemed inclined to isolate him in one on one situations than during his first two seasons, but some of that may have been more of an attempt to get Braden Smith into foul trouble and negate his aggressiveness on both ends of the floor. That being said, Loyer adding more strength to his frame would be a welcome addition.

That added strength and bulk, although Matt Painter has frequently preached functional strength, would help Loyer from getting ragdolled when he enters the lane. Loyer has a good ability to get himself into the lane off shot fakes and coming off screens but has, at times, struggled to finish at the rim. One has to wonder if added strength and bulk would not only allow him to finish more consistently but also get more foul calls. I’m just not sold on B1G officials giving a paper thin guard foul calls when he gets shoved into the fourth row versus a guy with more muscle.

There isn’t much more that Loyer can do at this point in his career to make a major improvement. If he decides to play professionally (which will likely be overseas), he’ll be able to focus more on his explosiveness, lateral quickness, and added strength. It’s like seeing what Trevion Williams needed to improve on but knowing he wouldn’t get there for a year or two after college. Loyer, if he chooses to, is going to end up being one of the better ball players in Europe for a long time for a lot of different reasons. His high IQ, competitiveness, and his shooting ability is going to make him a lot of money.