Women’s Basketball: Michigan State 76, Purdue 73

Just when Purdue looked to finally snap their lengthy losing streak, Michigan State hits a game-winner to edge out the Boilermakers by a score of 76-73.

The Boilermakers showed some fight and flashes of a good basketball team tonight, but continuing the theme of 2021, they just could not put a full 40 minutes together.

Michigan State jumped out of gates quickly as they dominated the first quarter and held an 11 point advantage at the end of the quarter. Purdue was only 4-15 from the field in the opening quarter, but were able to get some shots to fall later on. Rokia Doumbia and Kayana Traylor hit two three pointers to close the first half and actually held a 37-35 lead heading into the break.

The Boilermakers kept that confidence throughout the second half going back and forth with a solid Michigan State team up until the final moments. Brooke Moore scored with 3:18 left in the game and gave Purdue a 9 point lead, but unfortunately Purdue closed the game with 0 field goals made in those final three minutes of the contest. Michigan State held the ball last and Tory Ozment drained the last shot to give Purdue yet another heartbreak.

Kayana Traylor did have her best game as a Boilermaker, scoring a career high 31 points on 10-20 shooting from the field, including 4-7 from three point range. She also added 5 assists, 4 rebounds and 3 steals. Hats off to Kayana for laying it all on the line today, she has had quite a few big performances on the season.

Brooke Moore also had a great game adding 17 points of her own on 7-13 shooting. No other Boilermaker was able to score more than 5 points and struggled to get anything going offensively.

This just shows how far behind Purdue is in terms of talent, experience and coaching compared to the rest of the Big Ten at the moment. There has been no consistency this season in any stretch and even last year, Purdue was very up and down throughout the year.

It would now appear that Purdue will have their worst season by winning percentage in the Sharon Versyp era. Versyp has had only two losing season during her time as Purdue’s head coach, once in 2009-10 when the Boilermakers went 15-17 and the other being in 2014-15 with a record of 11-20.

That season, Purdue went 3-15 in Big Ten play and was thought to be an all time low for the program. They will not reach either the 10 win or the 20 loss mark this season as it was shortened due to COVID-19, but they now hold a .315 winning percentage. In 2014-15, their winning percentage was slightly less awful at .354.

Fans have been and will continue to say this until it happens... Sharon Versyp should no longer be the Purdue Boilermakers coach. It is as simple as that. She has had some good moments, but the last 4 years have not been cutting it compared to the program’s standards.