Purdue defeated Indiana by a final score of 57=49 on Thursday night at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind.
The three keys to the game, final stats, and highlights are below.
Indiana (18-10, 8-9) will travel to Illinois for a 2 p.m. tip on Sunday.
THREE KEYS TO THE GAME
1. A season worst day from the field. You won’t win many, if any, games shooting 25.4 percent from the field. The fact that Indiana kept this close for much of the game suggests that IU did a lot of other things right. But 15-of-59 overall and 5-of-24 from behind the arc simply won’t get it done. IU missed open looks and they took tough shots too, but nothing would go down.
2. The defense was good enough to win. IU held Purdue to 37.5 percent from the field and just 9 assists on 11 turnovers. IU added 7 steals and 4 blocks and Purdue shot just 2-of-17 from three-point range. All of those numbers suggest that Indiana did enough on the defensive end of the floor. The effort level was there and the Hoosiers didn’t let up, but it was never going to be enough to overcome IU’s offensive futility.
3. Purdue keeps it out of the post. Indiana’s recent run of good play has been spearheaded by getting the ball in the hands of Trayce Jackson-Davis on the block. The Boilermakers trapped the post every time the freshman big man touched the ball, limiting him to just two field goals, one of which came in transition. Jackson-Davis didn’t make things any easier on himself with just four rebounds. The starting trio of Jackson-Davis, Joey Brunk and Justin Smith were just 6-of-23 from the field as Purdue clogged the paint and made everything around the rim difficult.
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