PDF: Purdue-Cleveland State stats

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With finals week and a highly anticipated matchup with Notre Dame around the corner, No. 18 Purdue needed to show what Coach Matt Painter called “maturity” Saturday.

Painter wanted to see a team that followed the scouting report, that came out fired up, that handled business, despite all the potential reasons to left focus drift.

He got what he asked for.

The Boilermakers used a strong first half on both ends of the court to take a big lead at the break and withstood a shakier — at points — second half to rout Cleveland State, 77-53, in Mackey Arena.

Purdue (8-2) now has a week until its next game, the matchup against the No. 23 Irish (9-1) in the Crossroad Classic at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. After finals, of course.

“I was proud of our energy and effort, for the most part as a whole,” said Dakota Mathias, who played an especially complete game with 12 points, seven assists, six rebounds and no turnovers, “especially we have Notre Dame next week, finals and stuff like that. But I think our mindset was really good. Obviously in the second half, it got a little sloppy here and there. But overall, I liked our energy and effort.”

Purdue led 7-0 before Cleveland State (3-6) scored about four minutes into the game and pushed the lead double-digits soon thereafter. It stayed there for much of the half, though Cleveland State stuck a couple three-pointers to pull within 29-20 with about 5:15 to play in the half.

Then the Boilermakers turned it up.

Caleb Swanigan pump-faked a free-throw jumper before putting it on the deck to get to the rim for a basket. Ryan Cline drilled a three-pointer on a beautiful ball-sharing possession — Swanigan kicked from the post to Carsen Edwards in the corner, Edwards quickly swung the ball to Mathias at the top of the key and Mathias went one more by finding Cline on the other wing. On the next possession, Mathias drilled a three after Vincent Edwards drove baseline and kicked it to him.

Then, in maybe one of the game’s most important stretches, Vincent Edwards scored on offensive rebound putbacks of Carsen Edwards’ misses on back-to-back possessions to finish the half with a 41-20 lead.

All the while, Purdue clamped down on D and didn’t allow Cleveland State to score in the final 5:17.

“Guys did a good job playing defense, help D and really helping each other out, scrambling on the floor, and I think that made a difference,” Vincent Edwards said of the stretch. “We were active. We were getting on the glass. We were getting good looks and getting shots. When you get good shots, that helps set your defense.”

The start of the second half wasn’t exactly crisp for Purdue — it had five turnovers in the first 4:31, and the defense slipped, allowing Cleveland State to hit three three-pointers in that span.

But the lead already was so extensive, it hardly was much of a dent in Purdue’s dominance.

And the Boilermakers quickly snapped out of the funk, scoring on four of their next five possessions and limiting Cleveland State to one-shot-and-done opportunities in that same span to push the lead up to 24.

In the end, Cleveland State shot only 31 percent from the field, had 14 turnovers and were outrebounded by 10. Its 53 points were the fewest allowed by a Purdue opponent this season.

Purdue did an especially good job locking down on the top three scorers, Mathias limiting Rob Edwards (16.0 ppg) to 10 points on 4-of-16 shooting, while Demonte Flannigan (15.3 ppg) didn’t score on five shots in the post against Haas and Swanigan.

“We did good (on defense), but we can get better. You can always get better,” Vincent Edwards said. “We’re not satisfied with it. We held them to maybe 21 points in the first half, so for them to score that amount in the second half, we have some things we have to clean up. When go down to Bankers Life next week and play Notre Dame, we’ve got to clean some stuff up.”

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