Breakdown: Purdue's win at No. 23 Michigan State

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Capping a dominant 26-point performance, Trevion Williams delivered the biggest stat of all: A 55-54 win for Purdue at No. 23 Michigan State.

Williams' floater off an in-bound with around four seconds to play finalized the Boilermakers' comeback from a 15-point halftime deficit and gave Purdue a signature early season road win.

"Everybody knew the ball was going to me, so I wanted to take my time with it," Williams said. "We wanted to get them off guard."

Purdue did just that, using Williams first to screen opposite the spot of the in-bound, then rolling him back to the ball, through the quagmire of bodies tied up in the lane, allowing for a simple catch and clean look.

"It's a play we go to," said Eric Hunter, the in-bounder, "and it usually works."

To set it up, though, Matt Painter may never have made a more impactful substitution than he did tonight, inserting 7-foot-4 Zach Edey into the game prior to Williams' would-be game-tying free throw attempt with nine seconds left.

The hope: An offensive rebound.

That hope was fulfilled, as Edey fought for the rebound, jarring it from Spartan hands. After the ball caromed off Williams' leg around the foul line, Mason Gillis dove for it and forced a tie-up. Purdue didn't get the ball in its hands, but did have the possession arrow in its back pocket.

It was tangible pay-off for the Boilermaker program's famed Rebound War drill that's produced so many black eyes in practice, but yielded so many important loose balls on game nights.

Purdue won this game with effort and grit.

Initiating this wild series of events to close the game was the impact of Hunter, who struggled much of the game, then loomed large in winning it at the end.

After he made two free throws with 11 seconds left, Hunter then jammed the inbound and knocked the ball out off Rocket Watts, setting in motion the whole sequence of events that won the Boilermakers this game.

"Normally we're terrible at denying right there," Painter said. "We're not a pressing team, and when we say, 'Hey, don't let them catch,' someone lets them catch. Brandon (Newman) didn't let Aaron Henry catch, and then Eric made the play. They had to go to (Watts) and it went off of him."

After Williams' one-handed floater slipped through the nylon to give Purdue its first lead since the game's opening stretch, Aaron Henry missed at the other end, and the Boilermakers celebrated a victory in which they led for all of 69 seconds.

The second half couldn't have been more different from the first.

But after scoring a season-low 16 first-half points — on 6-of-23 shooting, 0-for-12 from three — and trailing by 15 at halftime, Purdue turned the tables on the Spartans, opening the second half with an 8-0 run to change the complexion of the game, and holding Michigan State to just 22-percent shooting in the final 20 minutes. Ten of Michigan State's 14 turnovers occurred after halftime.

Painter credited the defensive turnaround after halftime to minimizing turnovers, keeping Michigan State out of transition and other such things.

"Just trying to make them score over us," Painter said.

Michigan State couldn't, going more than 11 minutes at one point without a field goal.

Eric Hunter had some words at halftime for his classmate, Trevion Williams.

"I told him, 'This is your time to be our guy,'" Hunter said. "He stepped up to the plate."

That he did.

Williams had already become a real headache for Michigan State, playing just a short drive from his adopted home city of Detroit, but after halftime tonight he was a piercing migraine.

After Purdue struggled to get the ball inside early onIthanks in part to Michigan State's pressure on its guards, he took over after halftime.

"I was just simple," Williams said. "I made my free throws, took my time. ... On my post moves, I was patient and because the ball wasn't coming to me, I didn't do anything out of order. That's one thing I've been working on and I've been saying it a lot, just being simple."

Two-dozen of his game-high 26 points came after halftime, including the biggest shot of his Boilermaker career to date.

"No one could stop him," said freshman Jaden Ivey, who made important contributions himself. "No one could compete with him. He lifted us up."

Purdue had taken its lumps during this formidable road gauntlet thus far, worsened by the Nebraska game's postponement making for an unprecedented four-straight Big Ten road games for the Boilermakers.

Against Rutgers and Illinois, Purdue competed but couldn't quite build on success enough to actually win.

Friday night's win was a lot about Purdue turning it on, but also quite a bit about Michigan State coming unglued, but regardless, this was the breakthrough the Boilermakers had been waiting on, seems like.

"Any time you can kind of figure out how to win, no matter how ugly it is," Painter said, "you're just hoping it can build confidence for your team, especially against a program like Michigan State."

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