Women’s Basketball: Illinois 54, Purdue 49

This season has been tough sledding from the very beginning for Sharon Versyp and the Boilermakers, but this seems to be an all-time low for the program. Losing to a 2-11 Illinois team whose only wins are Indiana State and Omaha is inexcusable.

Purdue allowed the Fighting Illini were able to snap their 10 game losing streak on Sunday afternoon by a score of 54-49.

Everyone was all out of sorts today, sloppy play, bad shooting and a lack of timely stops were to blame for the loss. Purdue was actually able to gain a lead of up to 11 points at the 1:55 mark of the second quarter and had a 32-24 lead heading into the break.

After halftime, Illinois just chipped and chipped away at the lead and took the lead with 4:45 left in the game. This was followed by a back and forth battle in the final few minutes before Illinois was able to ice the game with a 7-0 run in the last minute of the game.

There is just not much to say about this team and season to this point. It has been a complete nosedive since Purdue moved to 5-2 on the year including back-to-back wins over Nebraska and Penn State.

Since the New Year started, the Boilermakers have lost 6 of their last 7 games and are in third to last place. The lone win of 2021 came against Wisconsin who is in dead last in the Big Ten and has a conference record of 1-13.

The time is now to move on from Sharon Versyp. A one-time powerhouse program in the women’s basketball world is now one of the laughing stocks of the Big Ten conference. I would not be surprised if come Monday morning, Mike Bobinski announces that Versyp is finally out as Purdue’s head coach.

By all accounts, Coach Versyp is a great woman, cares for her players, and does amazing things for the community. Regardless of those stories and relationships, she has formed, there needs to be a change at the helm for the program and hopefully, that time will be coming soon.