3/2/2019 basketball Edit

Carsen Edwards pushes Purdue into sole possession of first in Big Ten

Brian Neubert • BoilerUpload

GoldandBlack.com staff

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Asked whether the thought of this being his final game in Mackey Arena crossed his mind Saturday afternoon during Senior Day, Carsen Edwards smiled broadly before breaking into the requisite niceties expected in-season of an underclassmen facing a looming NBA decision.

"I just know we have two more games to focus on, then the tournament," Edwards said, with a certain joy to it. "I'm just proud of my seniors, Ryan and Grady. They've done so much for this program and I'm just happy we've sent them out on a good note, with a good season."

Interpret the smile however you will.

But if this was the All-American's finale on Keady Court, he left it in fine fashion, scoring 25 points in No. 14 Purdue's 86-51 obliteration of Ohio State, a rout that put the Boilermakers all by themselves in first place in the Big Ten, with just two games left, needing to win only one to clinch at least a share of the title.

"We're not thinking about winning just one of them," center Matt Haarms said. "We're thinking about winning both of them."

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Purdue took the court against the Buckeyes before Indiana had finalized its narrow win over Michigan State in Bloomington, an outcome that dropped the Spartans out of a first-place tie with the Boilermakers.

Purdue got help from Indiana.

Then it needed no help whatsoever in throttling the Buckeyes.

Purdue shot 56 percent for the game, and blew it open in the first with a run of eight made field goals in nine tries – the one miss dunked by Haarms on a putback. Haarms finished with 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting.

But it was Purdue's long-range shooting that allowed the Buckeyes not even a chance in the first half.

The Boilermakers made five of their first seven threes, from five different players, with consecutive makes from Ryan Cline, Grady Eifert, Evan Boudreaux and Aaron Wheeler setting the table for Purdue to blow the game wide-open.

"Once we were making shots," Cline said, "we were tough to guard."

Meanwhile, while Matt Painter admitted he was concerned when it was announced Friday that Ohio State's best player, big man Kaleb Wesson, would be suspended, moving the Buckeyes toward playing smaller, which gave the Boilermakers problems in Columbus earlier in the season.

Turned out, his concerns were swiftly dashed, as the Buckeyes made a little more than a quarter of their shots in the first half, and a third of them for the game.

Andre Wesson, who scored 22 points on 9-of-10 shooting against Purdue in Game 1 was 2-of-8 in the rematch.

"It was just good position defense," Haarms said, "not allowing blow-bys, closing out on shots, just suffocating them.

"We just didn't let anything through. We did a really good job defensively and that's something we're going to have to keep going."

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