Breakdown: #8 Purdue's win over Indiana

There was no more fitting way for Purdue's regular season to end and for senior day to play out than for the Boilermakers to find themselves in a harrowingly close game, only for its three seniors to quite literally save the day.

Behind immense contributions from Eric Hunter, Sasha Stefanovic and Trevion Williams, Purdue survived rival Indiana, 69-67.

Our breakdown.

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You really couldn't have scripted a better senior day story.

As it so often has this season, Purdue stood on the brink after Indiana had erased leads that peaked at 13 before halftime and eight after halftime, and fell behind the Hoosiers by four with less than seven minutes to play.

It was a familiar story: Missed free throws, defensive difficulties against ball-screen offense and a self-destructive stretch of turnovers, in this case five of them over the span of six trips down the floor.

Then, Purdue's seniors made certain their day wouldn't be ruined.

Again, you couldn't have scripted it much better.

"That's the basketball gods," Eric Hunter joked.

After a Trevion Williams bucket tied the game, Sasha Stefanovic's three-pointer gave Purdue the lead back, this time for good, with 5:10 to play. Two of Eric Hunter's baskets followed and another from Williams.

With 12 seconds to play and Purdue up just two, Williams followed his blocked shot by stealing Indiana's baseline in-bound pass, tipping Miller Kopp's in-bound pass off Mason Gillis' back, collecting it, then getting fouled and making both free throws.

"I knew it was going to Race (Thompson) or Trayce ... and had that in the back of my head," Williams said. "I tried to stay in the paint and make that stop."

Indiana still had a chance in the game's final seconds, down three with six seconds to go, but IU guard Xavier Johnson capped a brilliant 18-point, 12-assist game with the bizarre decision to throw up a prayer from barely across the mid-court line, apparently thinking he might get a foul call.

Johnson did not even see the ball land, as he'd turned to the official to lobby for a call almost as soon as the ball left his fingertips.

That was it, Purdue surviving in its third straight game decided essentially at the buzzer and sidestepping what would have been a really painful defeat.

Thanks to its seniors.

Hunter led Purdue with 17 points and five assists, Stefanovic scored 15 and Williams chipped in much of his eight-and-eight line when it mattered most.

"All three of them made some really significant plays," Coach Matt Painter said. "... Trevion, Sasha and Eric all really contributed to this victory."

The bright side was that Purdue found a way at the end.

The flip side was all that went into the path to those final seconds.

The Boilermakers shot below 40 percent for the game as Indiana did a fine job making things difficult on Jaden Ivey, who was 2-for-11 with three turnovers and didn't make a two-point shot.

But Purdue was again its own worst enemy, as that string of five turnovers in six second-half trips took IU from eight down to three up, very similar to how the first game with the Hoosiers turned in the final 10 minutes of the first half, and consistent with the pattern that's led to a number of Purdue losses this season.

"We just kind of lost our way," Painter said. "They did a good job over-loading and just making it tough when we were driving the basketball, and then we didn't just make simple plays. ... It's been a little bit of an Achilles for us when guys don't make the simple play. When we try to over-do things when they put two to three people on the basketball and don't make simple passes, we get in trouble.

"It was nothing overly complex, just guys not getting the ball out of their hands or trying to over-do some things."

It didn't help either that Purdue's streaky foul shooting again turned on it. The final tally of 14-of-21 doesn't tell the story. The Boilermakers missed three one-and-one opportunities, two of them during the 9-0 run Indiana closed the first half with.

In some ways, Purdue stepped on the same mines it often has on its way to defeat. This time, it survived. In a meeting between two teams with complicated histories in close games this season, someone had to win.

Here was the difference: Purdue's 14 offensive rebounds led to 15 second-chance points.

This was a consummate Mason Gillis game, as two of his first-half offensive rebounds led directly to Purdue threes.

Purdue's not been a great loose-ball team this season, but today, it got every one of them that mattered, it seemed like.

Gillis was the face of that element for Purdue.

"It's mandatory you get a guy like that on your team," Williams said of Gillis. "He does all the little things. He's diving on the floor, he's hitting guys every time, tracking the ball down, hitting an open three. He just does all the right things. He's simple and being tough and that's what Coach Painter likes. He's earned Coach Painter's trust."

Heading into the postseason, it was less than ideal that much of the same stuff that's cost Purdue dearly this season resurfaced. So often, Purdue's allowed itself to be in compromising positions at the end of games — thanks to turnovers and shoddy foul shooting — and got burned. Today, they pulled it out.

A win's a win, especially in this rivalry, and style points and margins don't matter.

But those self-destructive tendencies showing up again was far from a positive development.

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