Purdue WBB: Boilers 82, Buffalo 70

After losing at home to an already struggling Valparaiso team, Purdue bounced back in a big way to steamroll the Buffalo Bulls by a score of 82-70 inside the confines of Mackey Arena.

As early as it is this season, it felt like Purdue needed to come out with a win tonight to prove to the fans and themselves that they are better than the expectations surrounding them. Heading into the ball game, Buffalo was 2-1 and could have been overlooked.

The game started back and forth until around the 4:11 mark of the first quarter when Purdue went on a 10-1 run late in the first, then the start of the second quarter to take a 20-11 lead. Buffalo fought back a bit led by their leading scorer Hemphill to cut the lead down to 6 midway through the second quarter.

That is when Purdue really turned it up. Led by Brooke Moore, the Boilermakers caught fire and went on an absurd 21-6 run to push their lead to a high 21 point advantage. Purdue never really looked back from there and cruised to a 82-70 victory to move to 2-1 on the season.

Purdue buckled down defensively as they held Buffalo to 39% shooting for the game and scored 34 points off of 21 Bulls turnovers. Buffalo’s leading scorer and most dominant player Dyaisha Fair was also limited to only 5 points, a far cry from her average coming into the contest of 24.3 points per game.

In the Boilermakers last game, they went a horrendous 0-15 from three point range but this time around they were able to find their shots and heat up a little but as they connected for 11 three point field goals on only 19 attempts. They also improved on the sub 30% they shot from the field last game as they made 52% of their attempts tonight.

Brooke Moore made a huge impact in her third game in a Purdue uniform as she scored a game high 20 points on 7 of 15 shooting from the field and four makes from deep.

Kayana Traylor continued her solid play as she totaled - points on 5-10 shooting and added 8 assists as well.

Tamara Farquhar neared a triple double for the Boilers as she racked up 13 rebounds, dished out 6 assists and scored 11 points on 5-9 shooting. Farquhar has been Purdue’s most complete player this season after missing half the the year in 2019-20 when she tore her ACL in late December.

The trio of Farquhar, Traylor, and Moore will be instrumental in Purdue’s success this season. If Brooke Moore continues to play the way she did tonight, the Boilermakers are going to surprise a lot of people this year. Traylor has also stepped up in a big way with the injury to Karissa McLaughlin, Traylor has assumed the role of a leader on the court that Purdue needs to succeed.

Purdue will look to build on this win next time out on Sunday, December 13th against Bowling Green who is 3-0 and has a win over Valparaiso who beat Purdue in their last game. The game will be at 2:00pm EST and you can catch it on Big Ten Network.