Breakdown: Purdue's win over Indiana
Purdue's win streak over Indiana hits seven while its losing streak stops at four.
After a potentially season-marring downturn of late, the Boilermakers got well — for one night, at least — Thursday evening, completing a two-game regular season sweep of Indiana and running their win streak in the series to seven with a 57-49 win.
Our breakdown.
WHAT HAPPENED
This is what Nojel Eastern does.
With the first half running out, and Indiana looking to capitalize on a chance to score last in a half in which it didn't score much, Purdue's pre-eminent perimeter defender badgers IU guard Al Durham and almost took the ball from him.
Juggling the ball still, Durham dribbled some more, and finally lost it, into the hands of the streaking Eric Hunter.
"I knew I had enough time to do a little something," Hunter said.
The sophomore surged to the opposite end of the floor for the one-handed dunk that sent Mackey Arena into delirium and Purdue into the locker room up 29-20 in a game where a nine-point lead may as well have been 20.
It was another Purdue-IU rock-fight — Indiana shot 25.4 percent, its lowest percentage in a game since January of 2014 — and the crowd in that moment understood every point mattered.
Turned out they didn't quite as much, because to open the second half, Indiana failed to score until more than six-and-a-half minutes had passed and Purdue had opened on an Evan Boudreaux-fueled 7-0 run to open a 16-point lead. The home team then proceeded to miss a series of threes that might have blown the game wide open and middled just enough on offense to endure some anxious moments once Indiana found ways to finally put the ball through the net.
Between the final minute of the first half and first six-and-a-half of the second, Purdue scored 13 consecutive points, accounting for more than 12 percent of the game's scoring unanswered.
"Any time you can put a stretch together scoring in a game like this, it's going to benefit you," Coach Matt Painter said. "I thought their inability to score to start the second half and our ability to increase the lead at the end of the first half was big, especially how we played the last four or five minutes of the game."
There were the nervous moments.
A five-point Indiana possession — a free throw, plus a flagrant foul on the rebound, plus two more free throws, followed by a bucket — got the Hoosiers within eight with 4:08 left and left the crowd squirming as the Boilermakers rode an offensive swoon.
Soon after, Race Thompson cut Purdue's lead down to six.
After the under-four media timeout, though, Sasha Stefanovic fed Trevion Williams one-on-one on De'Ron Davis, the lane wide open, and Williams took two dribbles then swished a righty hook.
Purdue made 6-of-7 from the foul line in the final 42 seconds to close out the regular season sweep of the Hoosiers and win In Mackey Arena for the first time since Feb. 5.
WHY IT HAPPENED
Whether you want to chalk it up to Purdue's defense or Indiana's struggles and shot selection or a combination thereof, this game was decided largely by IU's inability to score.
The Boilermakers' masterful post defense doubled and trapped Hoosier freshman alpha Trayce Jackson-Davis into a non-descript 2-of-7, six-point showing and IU's offensive infrastructure crumbled around him, with only guard Robert Phinisee, during a second-half stretch, doing much of anything.
"That's pretty much their offense, how they get their energy, how they attack players," big man Trevion Williams said of Purdue's post defense. "We just tried our best to knock out the post. It's a big part of their offense, like 70-80 percent of their offense is getting the ball to Trayce."
About four minutes into the second half, Indiana was 6-of-32 from the floor, "good" for 18.8 percent. Take out two transition dunks off first-half turnovers and 4-of-30 equals less than 13-and-a-half percent.
"Purdue had a lot of answers for us defensively," IU coach Archie Miller said.
Once Purdue closed off IU's early offensive rebounding surge — the Hoosiers had seven of them through seven minutes, but finished with only 12 — the Boilermakers seized control.
"We came to the under-16, then the under-12, and we made it our priority to come out strong on the glass and make sure we hit them every time," Boudreaux said.
"At the end of the day, I think that was kind of the turning point, that we were able to get some stops then actually grab the rebound and push it and that let us get our head up a little bit."
WHO MADE IT HAPPEN
Several Purdue players played well, but Trevion Williams looked the part of a destination player offensively, the guy the Boilermakers went to when they needed a bucket, and he delivered, with 19 points on a deceptive 8-of-17 shooting (because he rebounds so many of his own misses).
Williams seems to be Purdue's best chance offensively these days, and he certainly was against Indiana.
This was a dagger he delivered, also: With 31 seconds left and this game not yet over, Matt Haarms missed a one-and-one free throw. But Williams rebounded his teammate's miss and was fouled.
The sub-50-percent foul shooter, again in one-and-one, sank consecutive foul shots.
That was the game.
Eric Hunter scored 17 points, including a few timely, timely baskets, including the walk-off dunk to end the first half. This was his best game since Purdue last played Indiana.
Matt Haarms made important plays in the first half, Jahaad Proctor in the second, Eastern throughout and Boudreaux especially to open the second half. Boudreaux was a lead, too, in Purdue's defensive efforts against Jackson-Davis.
WHAT IT MEANS
This win doesn't change the fact that Purdue may have played itself out of the NCAA Tournament during its four-game slide, but wins over Indiana, sweeps over Indiana, are always a nice consolation prize for the Boilermaker program.
That said, this was a sign of a distinct pulse, too, and reminder that Purdue can still make more of this season than it appeared a few days ago.
That said, these are two flawed teams, and Purdue wasn't perfect in victory and IU certainly wasn't anything close in defeat.
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