Purdue 74, Rutgers 55: Haas Has Big Night

At Indiana, Isaac Haas was 2 of 8 from the floor with 6 points and 6 rebounds. It was a rough night, as he often settled for fadeaways and hooks instead of attacking the basket.

With Rutgers coming to town they tried to defend him one-on-one with C.J. Gettys and Shaquille Doorson. It did not go well. The big man had his best game of the Big Ten season with 24 points and 11 rebounds as Purdue rolled over the Scarlet Knights. It turns out when teams don’t double-team him and he is not fouled Isaac is more assertive and is pretty good.

Truth be told, this was not the prettiest game for Purdue. Purdue was mostly cold from beyond the arc and Caleb Swanigan had an atypical off game (yet still had his double-double with 12 points and 17 rebounds). Carsen Edwards struggled, but had a couple of first half threes. Purdue didn’t shoot overly well, but Rutgers was worse and they had no answer for Haas and Swanigan.

Nigel Johnson had a huge game for them with 23 points on 5 of 6 three-point shooting and, naturally, the worst three-point shooting team in the conference outshot the best three-point shooting team in the conference.

I would rather have a bad game like this at home against Rutgers than a week from Saturday at Michigan. Sometimes you just have to clog through games like this, where you should win but struggle a bit. You can’t really complain about a 19 point conference win though. Purdue did its job and the pressure is officially on Wisconsin Thursday night now. After 13 games Purdue is now tied for the Big Ten lead in the win column in advance of Wisconsin’s trip to Michigan on Thursday night.