Purdue Women’s Basketball: Minnesota 72, Purdue 59

Purdue lost just their second game inside Mackey Arena this season after they fell to Minnesota 72-59 on Sunday afternoon.

The Gophers started off the game on fire quickly getting out to a 16-4 lead in what looked like may be the start of a blowout. Then an Ae’Rianna Harris free throw started a 14-0 run for Purdue to take an 18-16 lead at the beginning of the second quarter. It was a close game with each team having good moments and tying it up at 43 with just under four minutes left in the third quarter. Minnesota then went on a 19-0 run to make it a 59-43 game and never looked back winning by 13.

Turnovers continue to plague the Boilermakers as they coughed it up 20 times and Minnesota capitalized on those turnovers while Purdue was unable to score when they got takeaways. With the Big Ten title slipping from Purdue’s reach, they will need to take care of the ball to string together some wins.

Sharon Versyp’s team did not shoot particularly well today going 36% from the field and 6-22 from three point range. Minnesota hit their shots from a 42% clip including 8-19 from downtown. The Boiler have struggled to find consistency offensively this season as they are last in the Big Ten in points per game.

Ae’Rianna Harris and Dominique Oden were the two bright spots for the Boilers today as Harris had 15 points, 7 blocks and 5 rebounds to become the all time leading rebounder in Purdue Women’s Basketball history. Oden led the team in scoring as she scored 17 points on 7-16 shooting and grabbed 7 rebounds herself.

Karissa McLaughlin was the only other Boilermaker in double figures shooting 4-10 to score 10 points and dished out 7 assists to go along with 4 rebounds.

The upcoming stretch for Purdue will be extremely important if they want a chance to contend in the Big Ten and make the NCAA Tournament easily as they are now 12-7 overall and 3-4 in conference play. That road starts in Lincoln on Wednesday as they take on the Cornhuskers at 8:00pm. Nebraska is 13-4 on the season and 3-3 in the Big Ten before their battle with Michigan tonight.