Purdue dominates from start in win over Penn State

Penn State likes to rebound and run.

But when the Boilermakers took the former away on Saturday afternoon, the latter went, too. And the result was a runaway 64-51 victory in what might have been Purdue’s most complete game of the season.

“Our last two have been pretty solid,” Sharon Versyp said, referencing Purdue’s win over Michigan State Wednesday, part of a modest two-game winning streak. “We’ve talked about consistency. You can’t play good one day then not show up the next day. It’s about being consistent and being accountable, not letting us have a bad portion of a practice.”

Aside from perhaps the final few minutes, which didn’t matter after Purdue was up by 25 with less than eight minutes left, the Boilermakers (11-6 overall, 2-1 in the Big Ten) were dominant. Purdue won on the glass, 44-36, converting its 18 offensive rebounds into 20 points. The edge was even more impressive considering that Purdue was retreating two, attempting — and succeeding — to keep the Nittany Lions’ running game stalled. PSU’s first fast-break points came with 2:30 left, well after the game had been decided.

“Our 3s, 4s and 5s did a great job of crashing the offensive boards,” Versyp said. “We watch a lot of film — the kids watch some but we watch hours and hours as coaches — and they don’t turn and find you to try to box you out. We were able to get those rebounds. They might be tall and athletic, but our kids were really focused on that.”

Focused from the start. The Boilermakers led 19-8 after the first quarter, then 26-8 only 4:05 into the second. On the last bucket of the 7-0 run, Dominique Oden, who led Purdue with 17 points, scored on a fast-break layup spurred when fellow freshman Lamina Cooper grabbed a rebound and led the transition.

Oden hit back-to-back triples to start the third quarter, stretching the margin to 20, 42-22, for the first time. It was part of Purdue’s exploitation of a weak Nittany Lion (11-5, 1-3) zone defense, in which the Boilermakers repeatedly found holes. Oden particularly; she had five three-pointers in 10 attempts.

“I thought they did a good job moving the ball and got some good looks,” Penn State coach Coquese Washington said of the Boilermakers. “And certainly Oden is a good shooter. She got free. We needed to do a better job of knowing where she was and not letting her get free.”

But Penn State had other breakdowns. Midway through the second quarter, Andreona Keys darted into the lane when she wasn’t blocked out, grabbing the board and converting a three-point play. Minutes later, Purdue zipped the ball around the zone, taking multiple passes before finding Bridget Perry open in the lane. With five minutes to go in the third, Ae’Rianna Harris found a soft spot in the lane, but rather than take the shot, she faked and dumped inside for a better opportunity for Keys, who again had the three-point play and a 22-point lead. The margin reached 25 with 1:20 left when Ashley Morrissette found Harris underneath for an easy two points.

“Coach V was telling us we needed to go from side to side,” said Keys, who had her third double-double of the season with 11 points and 10 rebounds. “Because we were just pounding it on one side of the floor. But once we started moving the ball in our 1 offense, we started getting great looks.”

Purdue shot 40 percent from the field, with 16 turnovers. Perry had 14 points, while Morrissette added 10. Harris had six points and seven boards off the bench.

But Oden was on. The rookie was 6-of-13 from the field, with the five triples, breaking a bit of a slump. She had missed her last seven long-distance shots in the previous two games.

“(When I’m slumping), I talk to the coaches and am like, ‘Can I get in the gym and shoot? Can we shoot? Can you watch my shot and tell me what I’m doing?’” she said. “It’s just repetition with my shot.”

PSU made only 38.2 percent of its field goals, with only one three-pointer in 12 attempts. Guard Lindsay Spann had 10, the only Lion in double-figures. Teniya Page, one of the Big Ten’s best scorers, had only six (14 below her average), largely due to the efforts of Keys.

“I can’t even say enough about all the things Keys does for us,” Morrissette said. “Everything he does, the hustle plays, then knocking down a shot when we needed it. She’s leading the team in rebounding and that’s an impressive thing to say for a guard.”

And the rebounding led to the win. It’d been an emphasis this week, considering Purdue had been hammered on the glass vs. the Spartans, even though the Boilermakers won.

“We’ve really been pounding on that,” Keys said. “We needed to board on the offensive end if they weren’t going to box us out and defend and get the defensive boards, and we did a great job of that today.”

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