Boilermakers soar past Hawkeyes in their Big Ten re-opener
Analysis ($): Stat Blast | 3-2-1 | Wrap Video
For about 10 minutes Thursday night, Purdue was engaged in just the sort of back-and-forth shootout it wanted to avoid in its Big Ten re-opener against high-scoring Iowa.
Then …
“We told ourselves, ‘It can’t be a scoring contest,’” center Matt Haarms said, “that one team was going to make an adjustment and start stopping them and we knew we had to be that team.”
Purdue was that team, drawing that line in the sand, then riding it to an emphatic 86-70 win over the 25th-ranked Hawkeyes that was even more one-sided than the final score may reflect.
The Boilermakers led by 26 with seven-and-a-half minutes remaining.
The reason?
Well, there were a bunch of them, one of them being those defensive stops.
After Iowa made four of its first five shots and seven of its first 10, it was 1-of-9, keying a stretch in which the Boilermakers opened a double-digit lead, en route to leading by 17 on Carsen Edwards’ bucket to beat the halftime buzzer.
But the synergy between offense and defense was strong for Purdue.
It shot 63 percent in the first half, 53 for the game after a ragged and sometimes casual second-half full of garbage time.
The key behind Purdue’s offensive success.
Again, there were a bunch.
But Carsen Edwards’ play stands out.
He finished with 21 points, but his first half siege against the lane, both in halfcourt and transition paced a Purdue offensive onslaught that put 52 points on the board before halftime.
The Purdue All-American split defenders at times, pushed it in the open floor at others, and when Iowa switched its big man, Tyler Cook, onto Edwards in space, the Purdue guard drove past him instead of shooting over him.
“He was doing a really good job getting to the rim,” Haarms said, “just carving them up.”
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During a first-half timeout, Matt Painter lauded his team for not “settling” for jump shots, Haarms said.
“When they switched a lot in the halfcourt, we didn’t want him to settle, even though he can dribble probably into a pull-up,” Painter said of Edwards. “You don’t know going into a game what they’re going to do at times. We didn’t think they’d switch on a ball screen and put a big there. When he does that, drives, creates for other people, gets in the paint and scores, we’re pretty successful.”
Purdue’s first half might have been summed up well in its final sequence, when the Boilermakers forced Iowa into a preferred shot, a long two-point jumper by Maishe Dailey, with time left on the clock. The shot missed badly and the ball found its way to Edwards, who dashed end to end for one last stab at Iowa prior to halftime.
It capped a half in which the Boilermakers made 19 of their 30 shots, five of their 10 threes and scored their most points in a half this season, eclipsing the previous high of 51 set in the second half against Notre Dame.
It was a complete showing for Purdue, in every sense.
Again, the Boilermaker bench starred, contributing 39 points of Purdue’s 86.
Haarms, in his third game coming off the bench, backed up his best game of the season against Belmont with another strong showing, with 14 points, six rebounds and a pair of blocks in just under 15 minutes.
But Aaron Wheeler was a difference-maker for the home team, finishing with 10 points in 15-and-a-half minutes. He made 4-of-5 shots and both his threes and finished with a team-best plus-minus rating, +18.
“I think that everybody (off the bench),” Wheeler said, “when they come in they try to bring energy and the scoring will come.”
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