After strong first half, Purdue falls just short in Charleston title game
PDF: Purdue-Virginia Tech statistics
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CHARLESTON, S.C. — For half its Charleston Classic championship game tilt with Virginia Tech, Purdue could do no wrong.
It smothered the Hokies on defense, dominated the glass, again, and threatened to score 50 in the first half against a talent-rich top-25 team. Behind it all, plus the backing of a crowd Virginia Tech's players called "like a road game," Purdue raced to a 14-point first half lead.
The second half was very different, however.
The 16th-ranked Hokies used a 22-6 mid-half run to snatch the tournament title from No. 23 Purdue, 89-83.
Yet, for a team that came into this season with much to prove given all that's new, losing was relative.
In Charleston, the Boilermakers clearly proved themselves as worthy of their ranking, for one thing, despite heavy turnover from last season's 30-win team. They were good on offense and defense and great on the glass, with their collective effort standing out as much as anything.
Sunday night, it just wasn't quite enough against what might turn out to be one of the better teams in college basketball this season.
Flipping the script from the first half, Virginia Tech made 64 percent of its shots in the final 20 minutes, outscoring Purdue 53-39.
The defense that made things so difficult for Virginia Tech in the first half looked distinctly different in the second, whether it was Purdue falling off — defensive tone-setter Nojel Eastern's foul problems certainly didn't help — or Virginia Tech picking it up lies in the eye of the beholder.
"As the game went along, we did some really good things against them (defensively)," Coach Matt Painter said, "but as we got tired, our details started to slip in our team defense and with that they were able to pass the basketball more cleanly and really get into a rhythm there in the second half."
Much went into Purdue's at times sizeable leads going by the wayside.
It missed on golden scoring opportunities when a few second-half layups missed. It had chances to make impactful threes off second chances. They missed.
"We just had some plays we needed to make just to set our defense and make them score in the halfcourt more," Painter said, "even though they were really efficient in the halfcourt. They were fabulous in the second half. We just didn't do a good enough with our team defense."
And from Purdue's seven second-half turnovers came 11 Hokie points. Purdue had to keep Virginia Tech's supreme athletes and shooters out of transition. In the second half, it didn't.
Purdue led by a dozen a minute-and-a-half into the second half after Carsen Edwards and Ryan Cline got it off to a 2-for-2 start from three-point range.
But after a transition tip-in for Virginia Tech, Eastern's uncontested finger roll rolled off, then Purdue missed back-to-back good looks from three.
Neckiel Alexander-Walker's three-point play — he scored 25 on 10-of-17 shooting — really began in earnest the Hokie run that swung the game in its favor. His transition three and jumper, back to back, later capped the 22-6 run and left Tech with a 60-56 lead with 11:51 left.
Chances remained for Purdue, which fell behind as many as six, but twice had the game tied from three on out. It never was able to get a stop on the next possession, however.
Purdue's last best chance might have gone by the way side with a little more than a minute to go, when Eastern came up with a steal and advanced the ball to Grady Eifert, who encountered contact that knocked the ball off him out of bounds.
Instead of the foul the Purdue-leaning crowd — and Purdue itself — wanted, it was Virginia Tech ball up four.
Carsen Edwards scored 26 with seven assists, but six turnovers, and Evan Boudreaux added 18 and seven rebounds in his fifth game with the Boilermakers. Ryan Cline scored 14 in 39 minutes.
They were the impetus too behind a half-long glimpse, at least, of what Purdue's best might look like this season.
Purdue shot 57 percent in the first half.
"We fed off our offense a little bit and started getting stops off of it," Boudreaux said. "We have to continue to do that."
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