No. 5 Purdue Basketball Escapes Wisconsin as Outright Big Ten Champions
MADISON, Wis. — Purdue basketball broke away from a late-season rough patch against Wisconsin, walking away from the Kohl Center on Thursday night with a 63-61 road win with sole possession of the program’s 25th Big Ten Championship.
Junior center Zach Edey led the team with 17 points, 19 rebounds and three assists. The Boilermakers finished 11-of-18 from the foul line, making nine free throws in the final four minutes to put the game away.
The team, which had lost four of its last six entering the matchup, snapped a three-game losing streak on the road to improve to 25-5 and 14-5 in the conference.
“Everybody's had a tough stretch this year, I don't care who you are,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said after the game. “Hopefully we can kind of keep working through things and keep getting better and string together some wins.”
Edey made his presence felt early, drawing three quick fouls in the opening minutes. However, in the first half, he went just 1-of-6 from the free-throw line. Both teams struggled to find a rhythm offensively, and Purdue hit a dry spell with three consecutive unforced turnovers.
After nearly three minutes without scoring, the Boilermakers went 7-of-9 from the field and used the momentum to carry a narrow advantage all the way into the second half. Freshman guard Fletcher Loyer scored nine points before the break.
Loyer ended with 13 points on 6-of-11 shooting, reaching double figures in back-to-back games for the first time since Feb. 9 against Iowa.
“It felt good to see the first few go down,” Loyer said. “Obviously with that, no matter if I made the first two or missed the first two, they're going to keep swinging it to me, and I gotta be aggressive. So really just playing the game how it goes, not forcing anything, and then just letting it come to me.”
Edey also had nine in the opening period, going 4-of-5 from the field with seven rebounds and three assists. Purdue went into the locker room with a 31-27 lead over Wisconsin by scoring 14 points in the paint.
Thanks to sophomore guard Isaac Lindsey, the Badgers kept things from getting out of hand to end the half. Averaging just 1.3 points per game so far this season, he was responsible for their last eight points to end the period, including a pair of 3-pointers.
Lindsey finished the game seeing just five minutes of action, but his scoring total marked a season-high, and despite Wisconsin shooting 39.7 percent from the field, it made 10-of-24 from the 3-point line.
“A game like that in your home gym, you're gonna make a few tough shots and they’re going to go on runs,” Loyer said. “We have to maintain those runs. So really just staying solid, sticking to who we want taking those shots. We had a few lapses, especially me, on defense. But ultimately, you just gotta go down, take care of the ball and get good shots when they're on a good run.”
It was those perimeter shots for the Badgers that would spark an 11-1 surge in the opening minutes of the second half. Junior guard Max Klesmit had eight points in the stretch and drilled two 3-pointers to give them a 38-34 lead over the Boilermakers with 15:06 left to play.
Klesmit led all scorers with 19 points in the contest, shooting 7-of-11 from the field and making three shots from beyond the arc. He had 17 of those points in the second half.
“We were concerned about their 3-point shooting, especially the way [Connor] Essegian and Klesmit have played,” Painter said. “Especially the way they played in the last game. We wanted to stay connected with them and they got away from us too much in this game.”
But after trailing by as many as five points, Purdue battled its way back and tied things up, 45-45, with just over 10 minutes left. The Boilermakers pulled ahead on a deep shot from junior guard Ethan Morton, and it was a one-possession game the rest of the way.
Morton scored seven points while registering two rebounds and two assists without a turnover in 19 minutes off the bench. Junior guard Brandon Newman earned the chance to start for the first time this season, and he delivered seven points, five rebounds and two steals.
With 21 seconds remaining, Newman stepped to the line and sunk a pair of free throws that put Purdue ahead 60-57, all but securing the victory away from home. The Boilermakers failed to make a shot from the field in the final 5:42 but made key stops down the stretch to come away with a win.
“That's the position you want to be in,” Newman said. “That's what you work for, and I had the utmost confidence in myself at the line. I knew I was going to make both because that's how bad I wanted to win a ring.”
The team will finish the regular season inside Mackey Arena on Sunday against Illinois. The game is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. ET and will be televised on FOX.
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