McLaughlin's jumper ends slugfest in Indy
INDIANAPOLIS — Having not scored for more than five minutes while trying to escape The Jungle, Purdue turned to "Hawk 2."
And Karissa McLaughlin executed the play to perfection Thursday night, nailing a 14-foot jumper from the left elbow with 5.9 seconds left to deliver Purdue (19-13) a 48-46 win over IUPUI in the opener of the WNIT. Purdue plays at Ball State at 2 p.m. Sunday.
“The plan was to start the play at six seconds (on the shot clock),” McLaughlin said, "then come off the screen and look for ‘Ria (Harris). And if it’s not open, come off a re-screen. And if it’s open, shoot it.”
Purdue survived when it got a stop on the other end; after the Boilermakers gave a couple fouls — one dangerously on a backdoor lob — Jaguar senior Danielle Lawrence got open on the right wing, but her potential game-winning three-pointer was short.
“I was really proud of our execution,” IUPUI coach Austin Parkinson said. “Danielle got her feet set and got a great look. From where I was standing, I thought it was going in.”
Purdue, which had trailed by 11 at the 3:45 mark of the second quarter, charged back in the third. The Boilermakers scored 20 in the quarter, one more than they had in all of the first half, doing so mainly by going inside. Purdue's first six makes of the third came in the lane, helping to open up the perimeter. McLaughlin's step-back 17-footer brought the Boilermakers to within a point, 40-39.
“I had no doubt in my teammates that we weren’t going to counter it,” McLaughlin said. “Being in attack mode in the second half (was what we needed) and we did just that. We really showed what we were about in the second half.”
Purdue took the lead, its first, on an Andreona Keys' jumper at 8:27 of the fourth. When McLaughlin nailed a three-pointer at 5:30, the Boilermakers had extended to 46-40. But IUPUI scored the next two buckets — and did so nearly four minutes apart — to get within two. Then, a layup by Tamya Sims tied the game at 46, although she missed the chance at a three-point play and the lead.
It set up McLaughlin's game-winner. Purdue had set the play up during a timeout immediately after Sims' layup.
"We didn’t do a re-screen all game and they were really packing it in,” Coach Sharon Versyp said. “So we were going to have to hit an outside shot. We’ve run that play a lot this year. We hadn’t done a re-screen all game and then we said we’re going to re-screen it and we were going to be wide open and it was.”
In a game in which the officials let about everything go inside, Harris somehow found herself in foul trouble. The sophomore forward picked up her first two fouls in the first two-plus minutes, then after sitting for an extended period, got her third with 2:48 left until halftime.
But the forward's return in the second changed Purdue. IUPUI's offense stalled, settling for one-on-one matchups and few second chances. The Jaguars (22-10) didn't score for nearly the first five minutes of the fourth quarter, after a two-minute drought to end the third. For an 11-minute stretch, IUPUI hit only one of its 13 shots.
“You saw that she’s the defensive player of the year in our conference,” Keys said of Harris, who had nine rebounds and five blocks. “She was blocking shots. They were scared to go up against her, and then we were rebounding and running.”
Purdue, which shot 42.9 percent and had 17 turnovers, got 14 points and five rebounds from Keys and 13 points from McLaughlin, who has now played the last 300 consecutive game minutes without a break. The freshman point guard last came to the bench in the first half against Minnesota on Feb. 8.
“I just know that if I make a mistake, I need to bounce back right away,” McLaughlin said, “because there’s no time for error after one mistake.”
The Jaguars, who got 12 points each from Sims and Macee Williams, and 11 from Lawrence, shot 37 percent from the field with only eight turnovers.
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