The Hoosiers evened out the season series at 1-1 with a win over the Boilermakers at Assembly Hall.
There wasn’t much for Indiana to look to at halftime.
Purdue was up by a pretty firm 12 points sparked by a late first half run. The Hoosiers were losing track of shooters and couldn’t get their own to fall, hitting just one of their 11 attempts from long range in the first 20 minutes.
The weird thing was Purdue was the group that entered Assembly Hall limping. The idea of losing three straight has been a bit unthinkable for Matt Painter’s program as of late but that’s just how the season has unfolded for the Boilers lately.
This looked like the one to end it at first. Braden Smith was settling in with 7 points and four assists to just a single turnover, Fletcher Loyer was getting loose with 9 points to his name and Trey Kaufman-Renn was causing issues under the basket.
Then something happened at halftime.
Coming out of the locker room, Indiana swung back. Hard.
The Purdue lead started evaporating in the first few minutes thanks to a few transition runouts off of some ill-fated passes. The door was cracked open, all the Hoosiers did was tear it off the hinges.
One 28-3 run in right around ten minutes later and Indiana went from making up ground to playing with a pretty comfortable lead, one it’d hold onto for the remainder of the contest.
It did so by playing to its strengths. Oumar Ballo and Malik Reneau, the team’s two best post scorers, combined for 15 and 12 points, respectively. The Hoosiers outscored the Boilermakers in the paint 24-6 in the second half.
Purdue just completely fell apart offensively. Smith and Kaufman-Renn each scored just a single point each in the second half and the former turned the ball over five times while the latter ended up fouling out of the game entirely.
In total, the Hoosiers outscored the Boilers 48=21 in the second half.
It’s a big win for a few reasons. Indiana really needed this one in order to keep any sort of NCAA Tournament hopes alive late in the season, provided Purdue’s spiral doesn’t continue. It also ensures a career .500 record for Mike Woodson against the Boilermakers in the regular season.