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Haas, Haarms help Purdue frustrate Wisconsin's Happ

Ethan Happ pulled his jersey to his face and covered his mouth.

Perhaps, he was hiding some salty language.

Perhaps, a scream.

Happ had just committed another first-half turnover — he had five of them in the first 20 minutes Tuesday night — and he was, clearly, upset.

Purdue did plenty to frustrate Wisconsin’s star, using Isaac Haas and Matt Haarms to defend the versatile forward, who often brought the ball up the court. Happ is used to doing it all for the Badgers — he’s the only player in the Big Ten to lead his team in points, rebounds and assists — but he couldn’t manage that when it mattered the most in Mackey.

In the first half, Happ made only three-of-eight shots, scored only seven points and had those five turnovers in 18 minutes, and the third-ranked Boilermakers had a 17-point lead at the break in a rout to stay unbeaten in Big Ten play.

“Not to let him get going, I think it was pretty big,” Haas said. “(The approach was) just staying low, keeping him in front of us and getting big whenever he got close to the rim. I think in the first half, we did a really good job of that. In the second half, at the beginning, we kind of struggled a little, but we got back to it, and he wasn’t able to score as much.”

Happ’s final numbers didn’t look bad, 15 points on 7-of-16 shooting with seven assists and six rebounds. But he tied a season high with seven turnovers, air-balled a free throw, committed an offensive foul when he hooked Haarms on a baseline move and, generally speaking, looked frazzled.

After Vincent Edwards drove the middle of the lane and hammered down a right-handed dunk in the first half, he turned to run down the court and incidentally slammed into Happ, who responded with a bit of a push.

Later in the half, when Happ was on the bench for a brief time — he rarely sits — he grabbed the towel he was holding and buried his face in it. Perhaps, again, airing out frustrations vocally.

“I forced him into three or four turnovers by myself and then had another one where he threw it out when the team was helping me. I thought it was really good on our part, just kind of seeing it and discouraging him from making his normal plays,” Haas said. “He wasn’t comfortable with that, and he ended up turning it over. The rest of our team did a great job against everybody else, as well. … We just took advantage of that and were able to step up and make plays.”

Haas started the game defending Happ, even when Happ was handling the ball from the inbound pass. Haas was waiting past half court, crouched low in a defensive stance, butt nearly touching the floor. Happ, at times, would give up the ball up soon after dribbling from the perimeter. Other times, he work to back Haas in, trying to get deep for a post-up.

Success was rare.

Against Haas on defense, Happ made only three-of-seven shots, including missing three of his four in the first half. Haas blocked one of them. Happ did get to the line once when Haas was defending him when he tried his trademark slip-across-the-front-of-the-rim-left-handed reverse, and Haas was called for a foul, though replay appeared to show little, if any contact. Still, Purdue — and Haas — had gotten into Happ’s head by that point, it seemed, and he air-balled the first attempt.

“We only planned on doubling whenever he caught it deep in the post. That didn’t happen very often. He often caught it pretty far out. At that point, I was pretty fine by myself,” Haas said. “He had one or two buckets on me that were pretty crafty, and you’ve got to give him credit for that. But everything else were extremely tough shots.”

Haarms had success, too, against the rangy forward, limiting Happ to only one-of-seven shooting over the first and second half. Haarms especially did a good job walling up in the post and making sure to challenge shots on the block. One of Haarms’ five blocks was on a Happ attempt.

Two of Happ’s other made shots came against Vincent Edwards and on a fastbreak layup after stealing the ball on the perimeter from Haarms.

“He’s a part of everything they do. So when it comes to things like that, we just tried to make it as tough on him as possible, run different looks at him, double him at times and just force him into tough shots,” Edwards said. “Sixteen shots with 15 points, I think we’ll live with that, especially with seven turnovers.”

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