Harris dominates in win over Lamar
Asked to come up with her own number that stood out the most, Ae'Rianna Harris looked down at the stat sheet following Saturday's game.
“The one turnover,” she said with a chuckle. “I don’t even know what it was, but I don’t like it.”
It might have been the only blemish on an otherwise outstanding day for the sophomore post, who collected career-highs of seven blocks and 14 rebounds (tie), to go along with 18 points, four assists and two steals. It was Harris' second consecutive double-double, this one coming in a 79-64 win over Lamar in Mackey Arena.
“I feel like everything is flowing,” Harris said. “I’m not overthinking about a lot of stuff. The energy is always there with the team.”
Harris affected about every aspect of the Boilermakers' victory on Saturday. In Purdue's second quarter, when a seven-point deficit turned into a 12-point lead, she spurred the Boilermakers (3-0), once tapping a pass out to Andreona Keys, in one motion, for a three-pointer. Then, moments later, she received a pass from Keys for a three-point play, putting Purdue up 42-30 at the break.
Later in the fourth, she scored on an airborne catch-and-shoot inbounds, then found Tiara Murphy for a three ball in the corner after rotating it out of the left post.
“There’s going to be three or four people on ‘Ria when she gets the ball,” Coach Sharon Versyp said. “Last year, it was more one-on-one so she was able to score pretty quickly. But she sees the floor like a point guard, she really does. Because she can jump up as high as she does, she can kind of survey what is going on.”
Harris' performance kept Purdue at a comfortable distance most of the second half, with the margin getting down to seven early in the fourth. But that Lamar (2-2) run was short-lived with Keys putting back up a Harris' miss on a run-out, then Harris scoring in the post.
Lamina Cooper scored 16 with five rebounds for Purdue, while Dominique Oden and Karissa McLaughlin scored a dozen each. The Boilermakers shot 54 percent, and they out rebounded Lamar, 39-28, helping to offset 22 turnovers.
Fifteen of the turnovers came in the first half, as Purdue fell behind by seven at the end of the first quarter. But Cooper jumped a 14-2 run to start the second quarter by scoring six straight, the last after her own steal. The Boilermakers also ended the half on a 9-0 run, capped by Harris' layup and free throw, to go up 42-30 at the break.
But the Boilermakers have now developed a bad habit for slow starts, including the turnover-infested effort Saturday.
“We’ve got young point guards, but it’s the whole team having to move and get open for them as well," Versyp said. "It was good to have a game like this, where people just pressured us all over the place. How do we handle things?
“We started just not passing and doing a dribble-drive, more in attack mode and that’s when we started scoring, seeing things, not just settling for outside shots. They just flustered us.”
Chastadie Barrs led Lamar with 18 points, six assists and four steals.
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