If one wondered why No. 2 Purdue was ranked atop the first Associated Press Top 25, the Boilermakers delivered an emphatic reminder on Thursday night.Trey Kaufman-Renn made his season debut with 19 points and 15 rebounds. Braden Smith looked like a national Player of the Year in a 21-point second half. And Purdue left No. 8 Alabama a loser for the third straight season with an 87-80 road win that could have major seeding implications in March.Now what can the Boilermakers do for an encore Sunday night when a sneaky good Akron team ventures into West Lafayette, Ind. for another nonconference contest?One way for Purdue to back up its excellent showing against the Crimson Tide is for Kaufman-Renn to continue pounding the boards. He hauled down eight offensive rebounds, helping the team earn a 52-28 overall advantage on the glass.”I know at the four position, coach (Matt Painter) is wanting me to rebound more,” he said after the win in Tuscaloosa. “I showed him I could today.”It wasn’t just Kaufman-Renn. As Alabama coach Nate Oats ruefully noted, Smith also outboarded his entire starting frontcourt in addition to his scoring outburst. Going plus 24 on the boards gave the Boilermakers (3-0) enough cushion to afford committing four more turnovers.”You’re putting yourself in a pretty good position,” Painter said of dominating the glass. “Our centers did a good job between them; they had 18 rebounds in 40 minutes. TK got 15 in 34 minutes and I think that’s the difference.”Smith enters this game averaging 18.3 points and eight assists per game, while Fletcher Loyer supplies 17.3 ppg. Painter’s two-headed center, South Dakota State transfer Oscar Cluff and 7-4 Daniel Jacobsen, teams to score 18 points and grab 15 boards per game.Meanwhile, Akron (3-0) comes to town averaging 99.3 ppg with back-to-back 100-point outings on the scoreboard. That includes a 109-51 blowout of Penn State-Shenango Wednesday night that saw 13 Zips get into the scoring column.