Purdue's fourth-quarter rally falls short against Minnesota

Purdue shot nearly 53 percent against Minnesota.

It allowed the Gophers to shoot less than 40 percent.

The Boilermakers committed only 12 turnovers.

But they got beaten badly on the glass, where Minnesota held a 42-31 edge with 20 offensive rebounds, and at the free throw line, where the Gophers had 21 attempts, 12 more than Purdue.

And those trends were the difference in the Boilermakers' 78-74 loss Thursday night in Mackey Arena.

“The name of the game was their rebounding,” said Coach Sharon Versyp, whose team played without starter Lamina Cooper (illness) for the fourth time this season. “We knew they were going to be a big rebounding team, and they had 20 offensive boards. With that, we fouled them every time they got the ball (back) and they were always shooting free throws. We usually don’t put teams to the line 21 times. We’re usually (the ones) doing that.”

Not Thursday, though.

A cool shooting spell helped do in the Boilermakers (16-9 overall, 7-4 in the Big Ten), as well, although they tried to overcome it with a late rally. After falling behind by as many as 16 points to the high-scoring Gophers (18-6, 7-4) in the third, due in part to a cool late-second-quarter swoon, Purdue twice fought back to within three, at the 4:50 mark of the fourth quarter and again with 15 seconds left. On the first, the Gophers pushed back, getting a free throw off an offensive board on their next possession, then a three-pointer by Godiva Hubbard, helping to stretch the lead back to eight. Then, after Dominique Oden's layup cut the margin again to three with 15.1 seconds left, Minnesota's Kenisha Bell hit a free throw to seal the game.

“We didn’t want to be down 16," said senior Andreona Keys, "but we knew they scored a lot of points and we had to play defense. We didn’t do that. If you don’t play defense, you have to outscore them and we didn’t.”

It was a cool second quarter that forced Purdue to try to catch up, after a blistering start that saw the Boilermakers hit 16 of their first 23 field goal attempts. But after Karissa McLaughlin went to the bench after picking up her second foul near the seven-minute mark, Purdue's offense left, too; it hit only one of its last 10 to end the half, as Minnesota used an 11-4 run to turn a 36-all tie into a 47-40 lead.

“We couldn’t score the ball,” Versyp said. “We were getting stuck and I don’t think we were sharing the basketball as well. It was kind of a dead end sometimes with certain individuals. (But the foul issue) doesn’t matter, we’ve had that situation before.”

The Gophers extended their edge exclusively on layups early in the third quarter, with Bell scoring eight of their 12 by getting repeatedly into the lane. Twice during the run, which ultimately put Minnesota up 63-47 with 4:50 left in the third, the Gophers scored off offensive putbacks. By the end of the third, when Carlie Wagner hit a three-pointer, Minnesota's first jumper of the quarter, the Gophers were up 13.

Purdue rallied with a 14-4 run to start the fourth, a stretch that ended with a Miracle Gray bunny in the lane, pulling the Boilermakers within 70-67. But Minnesota held off the charge then and again in the final seconds.

Minnesota turned its 20 offensive boards into 18 second-chance points, some of those at the line; there, it was 16 of 21.

“The 20 (offensive) boards for us paid big dividends in different ways,” Minnesota coach Marlene Stollings said. “We were able to go back up and score on some of those, and then late we were able to kick the ball back out to eat up a lot of the clock.

“Our clock management in the last 2:30 was really solid.”

Ae'Rianna Harris led Purdue with 19 points, while Keys had 17 and Oden 13. But outside of Harris' 11 boards, the Boilermakers didn't get much more. Gray, a point guard who played 18 solid minutes off the bench, was the second-highest rebounder for Purdue with four.

“They were tougher than us, more physical,” Versyp said of the Gophers. “They didn’t wince one time. We did.”

Purdue was without Cooper, too, thinning an already thin bench. Versyp, who used only seven players Thursday, said Cooper is out indefinitely due to a recurrence of her previous illness.

Bell had 22 points, nine assists and five rebounds for Minnesota, while Destiny Pitts 18 points and Hubbard 17.

The win was a big one for the Gophers, an NCAA Tournament bubble team like Purdue.

"There's going to be a bottle neck, I believe, as we wind down here in Big Ten play," Stollings said. "There typically is. So that head-to-head tie becomes huge. That's something we talked about the last couple days with our team, in these single games when you come down and end up in a tie position, these become bigger and bigger.

"And this is a big RPI game for us, because Purdue is playing so well, with big victories of late. We knew from an RPI standpoint, this could be a big game for us. In terms of our NCAA Tournament goals, and I know they have the same, this was a big win."

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