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Late putback seals Purdue's fate

More: Purdue goes down in final seconds

Keita Bates-Diop didn’t hesitate.

Neither did Vincent Edwards.

As soon as Jae’Sean Tate put the ball on the floor and drove hard left-handed toward the basket in the final seconds Wednesday, Ohio State’s Bates-Diop and Purdue’s Edwards shot toward the rim from their spot near the top of the key.

When Tate’s shot bounced off the rim, Bates-Diop and Edwards rose, intent to grab the rebound.

Edwards got a hand on it first, knocking it in to the backboard but not securing it. That allowed Bates-Diop the chance for a one-motion, catch-and-putback that slipped through the net.

The shot that allowed No. 14 Ohio State to upset third-ranked Purdue, 64-63, in Mackey Arena.

The shot that snapped the Boilermakers’ 19-game winning streak.

The shot that sent the Buckeyes into a tie for the Big Ten lead with the Boilermakers.

“I’m really not too sure,” Edwards said afterward when asked what happened on the play. “I just remember, I was under the rim. I had a hand on the ball, but just couldn’t come up with it. Flew out of bounds, and when I turned around, he was just laying the ball in.”

Seconds after taking a one-point lead on Edwards’ baseline drive three-point play with 51.7 seconds left, Purdue seemed to lock in on defense, intent on sealing the biggest game thus far of the Big Ten season.

Center Matt Haarms seamlessly switched to help on the perimeter, forcing Ohio State to swing the ball around before Tate had to last-ditch drive it with the shot clock winding down. His wild shot missed. Purdue's Carsen Edwards had a chance to secure it in the air but couldn't, and the rebound caromed past the free throw line.

Dakota Mathias lunged and appeared to get a hand on the ball, but Andrew Dakich gobbled it up, and Ohio State called a timeout with 16.2 seconds left.

Ohio State wanted Bates-Diop, a contender for league player-of-the-year, to take the last shot. But Mathias was draped on him, and when Purdue switched on a screen at the top of the key — Mathias moving to Tate, Edwards taking Diop — Tate had little choice with the clock dwindling than to drive.

“I knew if he was going to miss, he was going to miss long,” Bates-Diop said. “So I just went in for the offensive rebound and no one boxed me out.”

Edwards may not technically have, but Purdue also had Mathias and P.J. Thompson literally standing on both blocks, waiting for the rebound. But with the hard bounce, neither really had a chance. And Thompson was no match once Edwards’ momentum carried him out of the picture: Bates-Diop simply had risen too high for Thompson, the point guard, to matter.

Haarms, the tallest player on the court, wasn’t an option for the rebound because he came to help when Tate got a step on Mathias on the drive and Tate's momentum bumped Haarms under the basket.

“I thought (Tate’s) ability to drive it there late and get to his left and force some help allowed Keita to get in there and clean that thing up,” Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann said.

Ohio State had only six offensive rebounds and eight second-chance points Wednesday, but they were enough opportunities in key moments to provide the difference.

“We did a good job of stopping them, but part of stopping them is getting the rebound,” Matt Painter said. “There at the end, we stopped them. They had three different cracks at it. They didn’t score until the very end because we couldn’t get a rebound. A lot of times in those situations, it’s not the first shot that gets you, it’s the second one. We had to get that basketball. Two different people touched that basketball when they got it at the 16-second mark and then they called a timeout. Normally, if we can get those, we can close out games because we have good free throw shooters.

“But give them credit. They were around the basketball, they got both of them, and that was the difference.”

Purdue still had a chance to salvage the game, but it had to do it with what Painter called a “high-risk” play.

The Boilermakers called their final timeout with 2.8 seconds left, meaning Mathias didn’t have the luxury of not inbounding the ball if he didn’t get a good look. Holtmann put Bates-Diop, whose length is an issue, on the inbounder, and Mathias couldn’t deliver the pass to the first-option Carsen Edwards.

Painter said his play design was to get Edwards the ball at 30-40 feet, allowing him to take a couple dribbles and then a pull-up jumper. Edwards already had made 8-of-13 shots, including four-of-seven three-pointers, in a career-high 28-point night.

But Edwards never got the chance.

Mathias had to send a baseball pass down the length of the court instead to 7-foot-2 center Isaac Haas, who was on the block.

“That was one of the last resorts if he didn’t feel comfortable with finding Carsen coming across. Luckily, he got it to me, but just didn’t fall in,” said Haas, who made all but four of his 11 shots and scored 18 points.

Haas actually had to leave his spot on the block to catch the pass, but his turnaround jumper hit off the back rim as time expired.

“I thought Isaac did a really good job of going to get the ball. He just needed to make a post move,” Painter said. “(He shot) a turnaround. Make him block your shot because the last thing they said out of the huddle was ‘don’t foul.’ So if he would have just stayed big … but we got a shot. In those situations, those are high-risk plays. You’re up against time. For us to be able to get a shot is what you want.”

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