WEST LAFAYETTE — Braden Smith was due.

The sophomore from Westfield, who has started every game of his Purdue career so far, has been uncharacteristically bad against the Boilermakers’ in-state rival.

In his first trip to Assembly Hall last season, he made just one of his eight shots from the field. At Mackey last year, he went 2-of-11. This season, he wasn’t a key player in Purdue’s 87-66 thumping of IU at Assembly Hall — he went just 2-of-14 from the field.

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But Saturday night, a primetime nationally televised game on Fox? Smith was more than due to break out of his IU funk.

It helped that Purdue had already seen IU’s strategy to guard Smith — Arizona had done the same thing back in December. While Smith brought the ball up the court, IU freshman Gabe Cupps — who is listed at 6-2 — was guarding him, trying to keep his right hand out of play. Purdue's 7-4 star Zach Edey then would come up to the top of the key to set a screen.

“They wanted to keep him off his right hand,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “When you go up and keep someone off their right hand, and you’re trying to open up space there, we had to flip it and twist the screen and set it to his left … it kind of just opened up more space.”

With Cupps neutralized, Smith had a decision to make: shoot with his left hand, snake around more defenders to shoot with his right, or pass out to Edey or his teammates.

And any decision the Boilermakers’ floor general makes has the full confidence of his team.

“It starts out with the confidence from the players and the coaches that they have in me,” Smith said. “Just for me to make the right play. If it’s me, it’s me, and if it’s not me, I’m going to find somebody, whether it’s (Edey) or finding the shooters. That’s just my job on the court.”

The first couple times, Smith got the ball to his teammates. But for a minute-long stretch seven minutes into the game, Smith saw his opportunity to change his fortunes against the Hoosiers. On three straight possessions, Smith drove to the rim himself, making three easy layups to start the game 4-for-4 from the field.

So easy, he was astounded.

“I was honestly really surprised how I got to the rim the first couple of times with no defense,” Smith said. “To be honest, it just felt really weird to me. But you just take what they give you.”

By halftime, he had matched his output of his past three games combined against the Hoosiers with 15 points. He added on four more in the second, finishing the Boilermakers’ 79-59 victory with 19 points on 8-of-13 shooting.

Smith added four steals, something that can be attributed to his high basketball IQ — he intercepted a couple passes off of sheer inferences, following where the player’s eyes were focusing.

After all, the 6-foot Smith is an athletic point guard — even if he has one thing going against him.

“I think people count out his athleticism a lot, he’s a really good athlete,” Edey said. “He’s just short.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Purdue basketball: Braden Smith slices, dices Indiana defense