Breakdown: Purdue's OT win over N.C. State

BROOKLYN — Standing at the brink of what would have been an unsightly loss on its final day as the No. 1 team in the country, Purdue just found a way on Sunday.

Trailing North Carolina State by as many as 13 in the second half at the Hall of Fame Invitational at the Barclays Center, the Boilermakers roared back to force overtime, then ran away with a come-from-behind 82-72 win.

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There was only 9:07 left to play when N.C. State made the last of its eight three-pointers for the game, extending the Wolfpack lead to 54-41, unlike anything that could have been predicted.

"We clearly played pretty poorly that first 35 minutes," senior Sasha Stefanovic said. "We weren't executing. We were making dumb mistakes and defensively we weren't very good.

"Those last 5-10 minutes, we handled adversity really well in that situation. We did a good job getting stops and getting good looks at the offensive side of the floor."

Purdue's heart began pounding again starting with the man who's so often put the Boilermakers on his back in key moments the past few seasons: Trevion Williams.

In a game in which he missed a triple-double by just a single assist — 22 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists, not to mention four blocks and two steals — Williams started Purdue's surge with an and-one off a face-up drive. Next, he hit Mason Gillis for a bucket, then Ethan Morton for another.

After Eric Hunter's steal yielded a score for Morton, Williams' steal did the same for Jaden Ivey.

Another Williams basket preceded the and-one he scored with 51 seconds to play in regulation to tie the game.

All told, Williams played a role in 14 of Purdue's final 27 points of regulation.

It was Stefanovic, though, that technically forced the overtime.

About a minute after he shook off an 0-for-4 three-point shooting game with a triple with 1:34 left, Stefanovic tied the game with a high-arcing finger roll in the lane. Purdue was playing for a three, but N.C. State got behind Stefanovic in pursuit, the lane opened up and he went.

"I was really just trying to put it up on the rim," Stefanovic said, "because I knew (Williams and Mason Gillis) were crashing and probably would have gotten it had I missed it. I just tried to get it up there quickly and luckily I made it."

To open the overtime, Purdue ran the same play.

This time, Stefanovic shot the three and nailed it. It was the Boilermakers' first lead of the game and the start of an extra-session deluge that snowed the Wolfpack under.

Eric Hunter's backcourt steal led to Williams' putback dunk and gave Purdue a five-point lead, probably the moment where the eventual outcome became clear. It was one of a few big plays Hunter made down stretch of regulation and in OT, as well.

"We just had to find energy and navigate this through each other and build off it," Williams said. "Coming out of the first half, our main focus was figuring out what type of team we were going to be knowing that our shots weren't falling. In the second half, it was more of a mindset of rebounding, doing more little things and having energy. When you have energy, things take care of themselves."

Much has been made this season of Purdue's depth and its wealth of players who can affect games in a positive manner.

All of a sudden, as Purdue's looked more vulnerable on offense than ever this season offensively and even more vulnerable defensively, that dynamic moved to the forefront Sunday.

Yeah, Trevion Williams was excellent again.

Yeah, the supremely talented Jaden Ivey produced his run-of-the-mill, ho-hum 22-point outing and made it look quite easy.

Yeah, Stefanovic made some of the biggest shots of the game.

But Purdue doesn't win without high-level efforts from two of its ditch-diggers, two of its role guys.

Gillis was perhaps the difference.

The sophomore's nine points and four rebounds were only a fraction of the story of his impact; the spark his effort and tenacity provided were much more so.

"If it was up to me, he'd have the MVP (award)," said Williams of the award he himself claimed.

Meanwhile, Ethan Morton again found himself pressed into major minutes because of defensive matchups, this time on N.C. State's best player, Dereon Seabron.

In 24 minutes, Morton gave Purdue a half dozen points and a pair of assists, with no turnovers. Most of his productivity came during Purdue's surge to tie, then win, the game.

"He was tough for us," Coach Matt Painter said. "He did a lot of little things that don't show up in the box score, and then you look at his plus-minus and it's the best in the game (+24)."

Hunter made timely and consequential plays as well, after Painter started him — and Williams — for the second half.

It was these players who really helped Purdue overcome a terribly flawed performance, riddled with atypically poor shooting and all-too-familiar turnover problems.

Again, 13 turnovers is not an obnoxious number, but the Boilermakers committed five in the span of seven possessions during the stretch in which N.C. State went up 13. And the Wolfpack got at least six points straight off steals, though Purdue turned the tables there, too.

Meanwhile, N.C. State, a sub-30-percent three-point shooting team coming in, was 8-of-18 in regulation.

But Purdue has to be better.

"You start with the concentration more than anything," Painter said, primarily regarding defensive discipline and attentiveness.

It means Purdue did what it almost did at Rutgers: Steal a win in a game where it wasn't as good as it needed to be. Don't let the outcome here obscure all that led to the Boilermakers being in the position they had to work their way out of. They have to take ball security and defensive discipline more seriously, among other things.

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