As much as any team can need a win before Feb. 1, Purdue needed Friday night's 70-51 victory of Wisconsin.
Playing like it defensively and especially on the glass, the Boilermakers left no doubt during their first meeting of the season with the Badgers.
Our breakdown.
WHAT HAPPENED
Purdue led this game by as many as 28 points, relatively early in the second half for such a robust margin, for one reason above all others: It dominated the backboard, dominated the backboard.
The final margin was 42-16 in the Boilermakers' favor. Purdue's offensive rebounding total matched Wisconsin's total.
Nineteen Purdue points came off second chances.
Purdue trailed by three points two-and-a-half into the game.
Then, Evan Boudreaux grabbed consecutive offensive rebounds, leading to a Matt Haarms three. Then, Haarms rebounded Eric Hunter's miss, drew a foul and made both, the combination of which sparked a 13-2 Purdue run that led to an 18-point halftime lead.
"After Illinois, we had to kind of look at ourselves and we knew that the effort we gave wasn't good enough in that game," said Boudreaux, who responded to his first start, and the Hammer Down Cancer occasion that's of personal importance to him, with 10 points and 13 rebounds. "We had a couple really good days of practice, and we were going to be the aggressor tonight. I think from top to bottom, we did a really good job boxing out and going after offensive rebounds and it really paid off for us."
Purdue allowed only 15 points in the first half — the fewest any opponent has managed in a first half this season — and led by 18 at the break.
Then, a team that hasn't always been razor sharp to open second halves was just that.
The Boilermakers made their first five shots, including a pair of Sasha Stefanovic threes, and opened with a 12-2 surge. Haarms' hook shot with 16:12 on the clock put Purdue up 45-17.
"Coming off the Illinois game, we felt like Illinois out-toughed us and played harder than us," freshman Isaiah Thompson. "We had two practices before this game, and we came out with energy. I felt like just before the game, everyone was amped up to play tonight and everybody was in the game, especially in warm-ups, talking to each other, and that carried over to the beginning of the game. We jumped on them. If we keep doing that we're going to put ourselves in position to win a lot of games."
Once Purdue was up nearly 30, Wisconsin found a pulse, scoring seven straight and cutting a dozen points off the Boilermakers' cushion relatively quickly. But just before the Mackey Arena crowd could start to fidget in its seats, Thompson loomed large in heading off any such nervous moments.
He scored six out of eight straight for Purdue and wound up leading the balanced Boilermakers with 14 points.
"We just had to relax and execute on offense," Thompson said of that stretch.
WHY IT HAPPENED
Obviously, this was all about rebounding.
Purdue's 33-15 halftime lead came courtesy of sub-36-percent shooting and despite foul trouble for both its big men, Matt Haarms and Trevion Williams.
"When you keep getting cracks at it, eventually you're going to make a shot," Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said. "And they did."
But Purdue's defense was as potent as it's probably been all season.
Again, the 15 Badger points in the opening 20 minutes were a high-water mark defensively for Purdue, or low-water mark, depending on your perspective.
Wisconsin wound up shooting 43.5 percent, but that number was largely padded post-28-point deficit. The Badgers shot 30 percent before halftime, and Purdue turned 11 turnovers into 15 points, on a night when garbage points ruled the day.
Leading scorer Kobe King, guarded mostly by Nojel Eastern, was 0-for-5 and held without a point. Guard Brad Davison scored two. All 11 of D'Mitrick Trice's points came after Purdue went up 45-17.
"Early, we just did a good job of having active hands and staying into the basketball," Coach Matt Painter said. "Just making it hard on them."
And, Purdue conceded nothing, not on the glass, nor at the rim.
In the first half, Wisconsin hit 6-foot-10 Micah Potter — the midseason addition who's helped transform the Badgers following their early season struggles — on a screen-and-roll at the basket, but one on one in space with the Wisconsin big man, Purdue's Nojel Eastern made one of the defensive plays of the season for the Boilermakers with a clean block.
The final score, and final numbers, probably don't reflect how strong a defensive performance this was by Purdue.
WHO MADE IT HAPPEN
Nojel Eastern and Isaiah Thompson really affected this game for the better for Purdue, as a lot of Boilermakers did, but this was Evan Boudreaux's night.
After the Illinois game, Matt Painter knew his team had been missing something.
"We've got to get it in terms of a competitive spirit from somewhere," he said.
In practice, Painter said, Boudreaux and redshirting freshman Mason Gillis played the hardest.
Boudreaux started for the first time this season, and probably not the last time now.
"He just outplayed everybody on the floor," Haarms said. "He was the hardest-working guy on the court and you could see it every moment. There were moments he was going through three guys who knew he was going to get that board, because he already had eight at that point, and he still got it or tipped it to someone.
"It shows on the stat sheet how hard he was working, but he probably had three, four, five tip-outs and that doesn't show up, and that got us extra possessions."
WHAT IT MEANS
It means that that the Illinois loss shouldn't have been over-reacted to, that that was an awful half against a really good team and impossible matchup for this Boilermaker team.
This is a good defensive team and a good rebounding team, no matter how Illinois made it look, and Mackey Arena remains a difference-maker. When Purdue plays as hard as it did vs. Wisconsin, it is going to be tough to beat, especially at home.
That's the rub now.
Purdue needed this game — if it's going to make the NCAA Tournament, winning at home is non-negotiable — and played like it.
Now, it has to do it on the road, and that's been tricky.
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