Purdue 93 Indiana 64

Purdue 93 Indiana 64

Purdue dominates Indiana in rivalry re-match

Purdue led wire-to-wire, shooting a season’s best 65% from the field. Purdue fed off the energy of the raucious Mackey Arena crowd and cruised to the largest-margin of victory in the last 57 years of the rivalry.

Indiana’s Lamar Wilkerson, who had been averaging over 31 points per game over the last 7 games had a quiet first half, only scoring 2 points. Wilkerson ended the game with 20 points but by the time he heated up, it was too late.

Purdue’s inside game was strong and did a nice job of drawing fouls. Purdue scored 34 points in the paint for the night.

Indiana still managed to shoot well, shooting 52%, but struggled to keep up with Purdue’s offensive output.

Key Stats

Purdue dominated the boards 30-15 and outscored I.U. in 2nd-chance points 13 to 0.

Purdue scored 16 points off turnovers, while Indiana only had 8.

Indiana only had 1 offensive rebound for the entire game.

Key Individual Performances

Purdue’s Braden Smith 15 points and 8 assists

Purdue’s Trey Kaufmann-Renn continued his strong 2nd half of the season, scoring 20 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists.

Purdue’s Omer Meyer broke out with a career-high 18 points including going 4-5 from 3.

What it means

Purdue made a strong claim for a 2-seed in the NCAA tournament. We project them as the last 2-seed.

Purdue remains in 3rd place in the Big Ten standings and remains in position for a coveted triple-bye in the Big Ten Tournament.

Indiana, with such a terrible blowout, hurt themselves in their projected seeding. Going into the game, Indiana sat comfortably as a tournament team, and as one of the last 4 byes. Now they are right back on the bubble and will have to fight to make the field of 68 teams. They now finish with a tough 4-game stretch at Northwestern, home against Michigan State, followed by Minnesota at home and at Ohio State.

Quotes

Indiana head coach Darian Devries, “Everybody knows how good Purdue is. When they’re playing at a level like this, it makes it incredibly challenging.”

Purdue head coach Matt Painter, “I was really pleased with our performance. Any time you get 19 more possessions than your opponent, you’re going to have success.”