Boilers Protect Mackey; Whip Hoosiers 70-55
(Photo Credit: Purdue Basketball)
Jelly Eastern, Matt Haarms, Carsen Edwards and their teammates warmed up Mackey during a winter storm earlier this afternoon as Purdue beat up on Archie Miller’s Hoosiers.
The game was back-and-fourth for the first 23 minutes before Ryan Cline and Aaron Wheeler hit a few threes that kinda ruptured the lock-up between the two rivals. Purdue’s biggest lead swelled all the way to around 20 points before Purdue let its collective guard down a bit. With about seven minutes left, it felt a bit closer than it was, but IU missed 11 FTs on the game that kept Purdue at an arm’s length for most of the second half.
Carsen Edwards had 20 points while shooting only 33%. BUT, his biggest contributions came in the form of the dribble, drive and dish. Also, Purdue kinda picked and rolled IU to death as IU struggled on the switch and Purdue’s shortest player found his extra-tall pal from the Netherlands time and again. Edwards led everybody with seven assists and added three steels and four rebounds. He did the lil’ things.
Haarms came off of the bench to frustrate and anger IU fans, which is always fun to watch on Twitter. Matty finished with 12 points, four assists, four rebounds and a pair of blocks. I’ll say this- Matt Painter outcoached Archie Miller by a lot today. When Purdue came out of timeouts, they had a play that took advantage of IU’s overly-aggressive high post defense.
This was all good, but to me, Jel Eastern was the mother of the bunch for our Boilermakers. He shut down Romeo Langford (four points, three turnovers, 2/10 shooting) AND was a handful on the offensive end. 10 points, 10 rebounds and a pair of assists. He controlled the pace of the game on both sides of the court…He looked like the guy that was highly rated out of highschool and many thought he’d become. His drive is tough to defend, and as he continues to hit his unconventional FTs, his game gets better.
Mackey was awesome…ear-piercingly loud, and that mattered. The Paint Crew chanted “Over-rated” every time Langford touched the ball or shot FTs. He went 0-4 from the stripe. Purdue’s defense looked extremely stingy at times, but by no means was this a perfect game. The exciting thing is, there is room to grow, and if Boogie is on in Ass. Hall next month, Purdue could add to its two-plus year winning streak over IU in football and basketball (just 785 days since IU last beat our Boilers in basketball or football).
Painter has done a masterful job cobbling this team together. I’ll admit that I didn’t think the NCAA tournament looked like much more than a longshot back in December…after the last seven games, the ship has been righted and Purdue looks to be gaining momentum heading to the meat of the conference schedule. Purdue has now beaten three (barely) ranked teams, and there is not a loss to a bad team in those six drops.
Next up, another test in Columbus…an always tough place to win for our Boilers. Purdue plays aOSU on Wednesday at 7:00p. And much like IU, they are reeling a bit as they’ve lost four-straight games (one of those losses to Rutger).
Keep rolling, Good guys.
