No. 5 Purdue Basketball Downs Northwestern, Claims Big Ten Lead with 70-64 Victory
EVANSTON, Ill. — The Boilermakers and the Boilermakers alone sit atop the Big Ten conference.
Following Rutgers’ victory over No. 12 Illinois, the Purdue basketball team tipped off against Northwestern on the road. The No. 5-ranked Boilermakers held the Wildcats to 35% shooting and dominated most of the second half in a 70-64 win Wednesday night at the Welsh-Ryan Arena.
Purdue moves to 23-4 on the season and 12-4 in conference play, overtaking Illinois and Wisconsin in the league standings with four games left in the regular season.
Purdue blew the game open in the second half, making six of its 12 shots from the 3-pointer line in the period after a slow start. Sophomore center Zach Edey led the team with 14 points and was one of three players to score in double figures.
"We're able to get to the free-throw line a little bit and just get some stops, too," Purdue coach Matt Painter said. "I think that's been tough for us here in the past week, just trying to tie in getting stops on the defensive end and also executing offensively."
Northwestern brought it back to within six points in the final minutes, led by junior forward Robbie Beran’s 13 points. Senior Pete Nance and junior Boo Buie added 12 and 11, respectively.
It was a sloppy first half for both teams. Northwestern, which entered the matchup ranked second in the nation in assist/turnover ratio, gave the ball away seven times in the opening period. Purdue wasn’t much better, turning the ball over eight times before the break.
"You watch film, you work on it, you drill it," Painter said. "We drill things and we work on things, that's practice. It can get cleaned up. We're not going to get confused with the '85 Bears with in our defense, but our passing can get cleaned up."
Even though the Boilermakers held the Wildcats to just 37% shooting from the field in the first 20 minutes, they were unable to make enough plays on the offensive end of the court to stretch the lead.
Purdue was just 2-9 from the 3-point line, with both deep shots courtesy of junior guard Isaiah Thompson. He had six points in the first half after scoring just seven total in the team’s last six games.
But Edey led all players with 12 points and six rebounds in the first half to push the Boilermakers to a 32-28 halftime lead. He also contributed two assists, was 5-7 from the field and 2-2 from the free-throw line.
"He did some good things. The one thing is he's so big, he makes it tough for people to finish around the basket," Painter said. They were really bottling him up, and he just stayed with it. I thought he got hit a couple times and didn't get a couple calls in that first four, five-minute sequence that he played.
"But he's great. He's another guy that just shows back up and keeps working and keeps putting time in. I thought he made some good decisions even though he had some turnovers and he made some good passes."
Purdue opened the second half with a 7-0 run, leading to the team’s first double-digit lead of the game. Sophomore forward Mason Gillis made a pair of 3-pointers in that stretch. He ended the contest with 11 points, including three made shots from beyond the arc.
Gillis, a 45% 3-point shooter on the season, hadn’t hit from deep in the last two games for the Boilermakers. He played 29 minutes in the win and notched seven rebounds.
Sophomore guard Jaden Ivey, for the first time all season, was held to less than 10 points against a Big Ten opponent. He was 2-12 from the field and missed all five of his 3-point attempts.
"He such a good player, one of the best players I've coached, but I've never coached anybody that didn't struggle at some point," Painter said of Ivey. "I played with Glenn Robinson — and he was the best player in the country — and he had tough days. Everybody has tough days, but it's what you do to work through those."
Purdue, despite leading by as many as 15 in the second half, made only two field goals in the final five minutes. The team will welcome the Scarlet Knights, winners of four straight against ranked opponents, to Mackey Arena on Sunday.
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- PURDUE, NORTHWESTERN LIVE BLOG: No. 5 Purdue basketball earned a season sweep of Northwestern and continued to make a strong push toward a Big Ten title. The Boilermakers are now 23-4 and 12-4 in the conference. CLICK HERE
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D.J. Fezler is a staff writer for BoilermakersCountry.com. Hailing from The Region, he is from Cedar Lake in Northwest Indiana and has spent the last two years covering Purdue football and basketball.