The women's basketball team saw a six-game home win streak snapped and lost consecutive games for the first time this season Thursday, falling to visiting Nebraska at Mackey Arena 84-64. The Huskers were red-hot from the field all night, hitting 49.3 percent from the floor and dropping 11 3's as they dropped the Boilermakers to 15-8 overall and 6-4 in conference play. The Boilermakers couldn't buy a bucket early-on Thursday, hitting three of their first 19 shots from the floor and spotting the Huskers a 22-7 lead from which Purdue would never recover.
Purdue rallied on multiple occasions, cutting Nebraska's lead to three points in the second quarter, and pulling to within six in the third, but each time the Huskers countered with runs to pull back away. Junior Dominique Oden led the Boilermakers with 18 points, including 16 in the second half, hitting 6-of-12 from the floor and adding six rebounds, three assists and a pair of steals. Oden climbed to 22nd on Purdue's all-time scoring list with 1,228 points, passing Lisa Jahner and Erika Valek, and is now within 18 points of former teammate Andreona Keys. Fellow junior Ae'Rianna Harris chipped in 15 points, eight rebounds and two blocks, while sophomore Karissa McLaughlin hit three 3's and finished with 13 points and five assists. Sophomore Lyndsey Whilby gave Purdue a spark off the bench, hitting a pair of 3's and totaling nine points.
Nebraska's Hannah Whitish had a career game with 28 points, 12 assists, five rebounds and three steals, cashing in six triples as the Huskers improved to 10-11 overall and evened their conference record at 5-5.
Four days earlier, Purdue rallied from a 13-point deficit to tie the score near the end of the third quarter, but 17th-ranked Iowa opened the fourth and final quarter on an 11-2 run and never looked back, finishing up a 72-58 Hawkeye win at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday. The Boilermakers drop to 15-7 overall and finish the first half of Big Ten play at 6-3, tied for fourth in the conference.
After going back-and-forth in the first quarter, Iowa pulled away in the second due to cold Purdue shooting and took a 37-27 lead to the locker room. The continued to pull away at the start of the third, but the Boilermakers rallied behind Harris and Oden and sophomore McLaughlin. The three combined for a 13-2 run to erase the deficit and knot things up at 47-47 with two minutes left in the period, but turned it over on the following possession and could never take the lead. The nation's leading scorer, Iowa senior Megan Gustafson, put her team on her back in the fourth, scoring 12 of her game-high 25 points and adding 11 points and two blocks. The Boilermakers made only 5-of-17 in the fourth quarter and fouled several times in the closing minute in a comeback attempt, but couldn't chip into the Iowa lead. Oden finished with 17 points, nine rebounds, five assists and two steals, while McLaughlin added 16 points on four triples and Harris scored all 12 of her points in the second half and blocked two shots. Junior Fatou Diagne had a great game off the bench, posting eight points, seven rebounds and a block, pulling down five rebounds on the offensive end.
Purdue remains in a tie for fourth place with Northwestern, who fell to Minnesota on Thursday, and is a half-game ahead of No. 22 Michigan State. The Boilermakers head to East Lansing, Michigan on Sunday to face the Spartans, set to tip at 2 p.m. ET on the Big Ten Network.
Wrestling to face Minnesota
DUAL INFORMATION: No. 19 Purdue (5-6, 2-3 B1G) at No. 7 Minnesota (11-2, 4-1 B1G)Sunday, Feb. 3 / 2 p.m. ET / BTN Plus on BTN2GOMaturi Pavilion / Minneapolis, Minnesota
Purdue Notes (PDF) / Results / Watch on BTN Plus on BTN2Go
- The final month of the regular season begins with the 19th-ranked Purdue wrestling team paying a visit to No. 7 Minnesota on Sunday. Action is set to get underway at 2 p.m. ET from Maturi Pavilion in Minneapolis.
One of the most notable matchups will come at 174 pounds with No. 14 Dylan Lydy facing No. 11 Devin Skatzka. Last season when Skatzka was on the Indiana roster, Lydy took a pair of decisions, 4-2 (SV1) and 8-5. Skatzka is in his first season at Minnesota after transferring and has already met and lost to Lydy. Then-ranked 13th, Lydy defeated the No. 20 Gopher 6-4 in the consolation quarterfinals of the 2018 Cliff Keen Las Vegas Collegiate Wrestling Invitational. For a third-straight week and the sixth time this season, the Boilermakers are colliding with a top-10 team. The six top-10 opponents are the most on the program's schedule since 2013-14 when there were five. Their next four opponents, including Minnesota, are currently ranked in the NWCA Division I Coaches Poll.
The 1992 Purdue squad had eight duals pitted against a top-10 foe and the 2011-12 and 2004-05 Boilermakers both had a dozen ranked opponents on their dual schedule.Thanks to five straight wins, 125-pounder Devin Schroder returned to the national rankings at No. 19, giving Purdue five ranked wrestlers in its lineup. Ben Thornton's 7-3 upset of Penn State's then-No. 13 Roman Bravo-Young lifted the redshirt senior four spots to No. 14 at 133 pounds. Griffin Parriott (157) retained his spot at No. 13, as did Lydy at No. 14 and Christian Brunner (197) at No. 12.
