3/1/2018 basketball Edit

Purdue rally falls short in Big Ten tourney opener

Kyle Charters • BoilerUpload

Staff Writer

INDIANAPOLIS — After a furious late-game rally that saw Purdue come back from down seven in only 56 seconds, the Boilermakers fell short of a second-round victory in the Big Ten Tournament.

Dominique Oden's last-second three-pointer, after Taylor Scaife had given ninth-seeded Rutgers the lead back with 4.5 seconds remaining, was inches left, resulting in a 62-60 loss Thursday in Bankers Life Fieldhouse. It's a damaging blow to the No. 8-seed Boilermakers' (18-13 overall) NCAA Tournament hopes.

“I felt like it was a little bit rushed,” said Oden of her last-second attempt, which came after Karissa McLaughlin had frantically raced the ball up the court. “I didn’t know how much time was left on the clock. It felt good when I let it go, but when I saw where it was going, I thought, ‘That’s not in.’

"That was disappointing, especially when I was the one guarding Scaife, along with Tam (Farquhar), when she shot the ball. She did make a tough shot, but I wish we could have done something different so that it wouldn’t have gone in in the first place.”

Scaife's left-elbow jumper helped the Scarlet Knights (20-11) hang on, after they had seemingly put the game away minutes earlier. The Boilermakers trailed by seven, 58-51, with 2:44 left — and by nine at 4:01 — when they blitzed Rutgers. Three straight backcourt steals, the last two by McLaughlin, led to two Oden free throws, her own layup, then an Oden three-point play. And in less than a minute span, the game was tied at 58.

“We picked up the intensity on defense, forced them into some bad decisions and turnovers and were able to come score in transition or get fouled,” Coach Sharon Versyp said. “Obviously, we really, really liked that, just wished it could have come a little sooner.”

After a defensive stop, Purdue had a chance to take the lead, but McLaughlin had the ball stripped away, leading to a Scaife layup with 1:12 left. Oden followed with two more free throws at 32 seconds, setting up the final two possessions.

Scaife, who had to change shoes at halftime after her left one malfunctioned at the end of the first half, took a screen left, with Oden trying to stay close and Farquhar drawing in. But the Rutgers' scorer — she has more than 2,000 in her career — nailed the jumper.

“I knew she was going to take the shot because she’s their go-to player,” Oden said. “Our game plan was to trap her off the screen. We were going to trap her but she refused. We still had two people on her, but she made a tough shot.”

Oden nearly equalled her, but her would-be game-winner was left, skidding off the rim. And maybe off a Scarlet Knight, who reached up and jostled the net and perhaps the rim with the ball nearby, leading several to scream for goal-tending.

"Maybe I could have at least had them look at it,” Versyp said of the referees. “But they probably would have waved off (goal-tending) anyway.”

Rutgers had taken control of the game midway through the third quarter, using a 7-0 run to turn a five-point lead — it had been tied less than a minute into the second half — into 11. Only a Andreona Keys' jumper at the buzzer, which ended a 5:23 scoring drought, after a mad scramble for the loose ball brought the Boilermakers a bit of life entering the fourth quarter.

Purdue rallied then, as it had earlier. After an eight-point first quarter — Oden had all eight, as her teammates combined to shoot 0-7 — Purdue trailed by as many as nine in the second. But an 8-0 run spurred the Boilermakers, who then briefly took a lead on Oden's three-pointer with 33 seconds 'til the break. Rutgers retook the edge, 30-29, at halftime.

The Scarlet Knights' size and strength inside hurt the Boilermakers, as Rutgers scored 32 points in the paint, plus had 10 blocks. That helped stymie the Purdue offense, which shot only 38.1 percent.

"It made it hard to attack,” said Keys, who had nine points and five rebounds.

McLaughlin scored 13 for Purdue, with five assists, while Ae'Rianna Harris had 10 points and eight rebounds. The Boilermakers hit a couple critical markers, having only 12 turnovers against the Knights' pressure and winning on the glass 36-32.

“We did the stuff that we needed to, but we didn’t have the sense of urgency early, so they got an eight-point lead, nine-point lead, 10-point lead and we had to keep on fighting back,” Keys said.

Scaife scored 15 of her 19 after halftime, when she was wearing a new pair of shoes. The original left one was giving her fits late in the second quarter, forcing her to the bench for the final two-plus minutes. Then, at halftime, a Rutgers' representative rushed back to the team hotel to grab her another adidas.

"She was responsible for the make or miss," Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer said of the game-winner. "And you're counting on her to make the right decision."

The he Scarlet Knights, who shot 51 percent with only 10 turnovers, also got 11 inside points and six rebounds from Victoria Harris.

Now, Purdue waits. It's an NCAA bubble team, with Selection Monday on March 12, a week-and-a-half away. The Boilermakers have a résumé that includes four wins over ranked opponents, without a "bad" loss. But Versyp thinks it's 50/50.

“I think we are (in),” she said. “We have a great résumé. (It’s) better than it was last year, but last year was last year. Beating four ranked teams in the Big Ten is tough. We’re playing good basketball, but I’m not the committee.”

Keys, the team's only senior, will have to sit, waiting to see whether her career ends in the NCAA.

“It probably will feel like forever," she said, "but we’ll see what happens."

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