Purdue 80 – Ohio State 66: Brooms

Stats

Zach Edey: 32 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists

Braden Smith: 14 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists

Brandon Newman: 15 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists

Roddy Gayle Jr: 20 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist

First Half

This half felt like a heavyweight fight as both Purdue and OSU came out swinging, especially from deep. The difference would be that Purdue was able to impose its size against the Buckeyes, as Zach Edey got in deep at will. The big man would finish the half with 17 points on 13 shots. Everyone else that took a shot for Purdue scored (Gillis and Morton didn’t take any shots). Caleb Furst was impressive as he provided even more size for Purdue. Twice did Edey dump a pass to Furst for a dunk because Caleb came up on the baseline. Another Boiler who did well was David Jenkins Junior. DJJ made two 3’s in the half and has yet to miss in the BTT. Purdue as a team shot 5-6 from deep, an excellent start. For Ohio State, it was the Roddy Gayle Jr show. The freshman scored 16 on 5-6 from deep by himself. Purdue struggled to rotate on him and he made his shots count. Justice Sueing and Felix Okpara each had 6 in the first too. Purdue would take a 42-34 lead into the half.

Second Half

It felt like fatigue finally started to set in for OSU in this half. OSU only scored 9 points in the first 9 minutes and left a lot of shots short. Purdue built the lead up to 14 by the under-12 MTO. Brandon Newman, Braden Smith, and Zach Edey all continued to score well as the Boilermaker offense was well rounded. Ethan Morton and Brandon Newman looked really good on defense, keeping the OSU guards in front of them. Purdue would go on a bit of a cold streak, going into the next media timeout up 9. OSU would get it back to 6 with 5:43 to play as Zach Edey was struggling with close shots, despite good looks. With 4:05 left, Purdue got the lead back to 10 on a Braden Smith lay in, forcing a Chris Holtmann timeout. The lead hovered around 10 until a Brandon Newman 3 followed by a Zach Edey and-1 dunk put Purdue up 16 with 2:30 left. Each team would go back and forth a bit in the free throw game, but Purdue would take it, 80-66.

Takeaways

Great to see Purdue hit shots in this one. We all know how good this Purdue team is when shots are falling. Gotta keep it up.

Purdue will play either Penn State or Indiana tomorrow in the Championship game. A 1 seed in the NCAA tournament is still in play, so let’s bring home another trophy. Boiler Up!