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More: Vincent Edwards keys Purdue's win
Northwestern ran hard, instant double-teams at Purdue big men Caleb Swanigan and Isaac Haas, daring the Boilermakers, basically, to beat it with threes.
They happily obliged.
Vincent Edwards buried four first-half three-pointers, Dakota Mathias rained jumpers from all over and 23rd-ranked Purdue rode its blistering early shooting to an 80-59 win over the No. 25 Wildcats.
Purdue buried a dozen triples on 23 attempts on a team that came in tops in the Big Ten in defending the arc.
"I think we're just a different matchup for them than they've seen," said Mathias, offering a nod to Purdue's interior strength. "It was tough for them."
Yes, Northwestern played without leading scorer Scottie Lindsey, who's out with an illness, but no one player would have done much on this night to stem the offensive avalanche that was Purdue in the first half, a surprising surge given the Boilermakers' shaky start. Purdue didn't score until two minutes and 43 seconds into the game.
Meanwhile, Northwestern's aggressive post-trapping forced big man Caleb Swanigan into turnovers on three consecutive trips. Matt Painter pulled his All-America candidate from the game and issued a simple comment.
"He just had to settle down," Painter said.
So did Purdue in its entirety. Once it did, the shots started falling. Purdue took 14 threes in the first half and made nine of them. They shot just under 61 percent in the first 20 minutes, amassing a 45-23 lead at the break despite turning the ball over on eight possessions.
Northwestern doubled off Edwards and the junior forward shook off a sore back to make it pay with those four first-half three-pointers, four more than he'd made the prior three games combined, an uncharacteristic dry spell for him. Edwards totaled 17 points for the game.
Meanwhile, Mathias picked up where he left at the end of the Nebraska game, this time with the desired outcome. He made all four of his jumpers in the first half as Purdue shot nearly 61 percent overall.
Purdue's lead peaked at 26 early in the second half. Northwestern got within 14 with three-and-a-half minutes left, but got no closer from there. Once the Wildcats got that close, with 3:33 left, the Northwestern bench was hit with an ill-timed technical. Mathias made two foul shots, then Carsen Edwards scored five straight, and the rout was back on.
Swanigan led Purdue with 24 points and 16 rebounds, shaking off the slow start to dominate a head-to-head matchup with one of the Big Ten's other elite rebounders. Dererk Pardon battled foul trouble and finished with six points and three rebounds. He came in averaging 10 boards in Big Ten play.
Purdue outrebounded Northwestern 41-30.
But it won this game, too, with defense. Northwestern shot only 35 percent. Aside from Bryant McIntosh, who went off for 22 points, much of which came while his primary defender, P.J. Thompson, spent a good deal of the game on the bench with foul trouble. But the Boilermakers stifled most everyone else.
Vic Law, the Wildcats' top active scorer with Lindsey out, scored one point and missed all seven of his field goal attempts, stymied by Mathias.
Overall, McIntosh got his points, but Northwestern generated little against Purdue off ball screens, after an early pick-and-pop jumper from Pardon, that is.
"Biggie and Isaac (Haas) did a great job being up there and disrupting them," Mathias said.
Northwestern coach Chris Collins credited Purdue's physicality and the pressure it put on his team's guards.
Painter cited attention to detail following another extreme for Purdue.
That's been its M.O. this Big Ten season. Great or bad. One or the other. No middle ground.
Northwestern was the latter, Nebraska the former.
"Losing puts you on edge," Painter said, "makes you realize there's slippage. As the coach, I have to make sure the slippage doesn't happen."
It certainly didn't on Wednesday night.
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