Boilers at the Buzzer! Purdue Hangs on Winning 80 to 78 Over the Runnin’ Rebels

A great win for non-conference play.

Whew.

Did everyone else sweat off their Thanksgiving Leftovers? Just Me? My toddlers played for two straight hours, I couldn’t believe I got to watch a Holiday Tournament game from start to finish with barely any interruptions, and what a game it turned out to be.

Purdue jumped out early on Ole Miss, leading by 17. Then, with about eight minutes to go in the first half, the Rebels’ green light turned on, and they simply could not miss for the remainder of the first half and the first ten minutes of the second half.

They hit their first six threes in the second half. With 7:57 seconds left in the game, Ole Miss took a seven-point lead and, honestly, some doubt crept into me at that moment.

I should know better though.

From then on, Purdue would go on a 17 to 8 run and win the game with a Myles Colvin go-ahead-make with just half a second left on the clock before a missed half-court heave by Ole Miss secured the win for Purdue.

Purdue has their usual trio of scorers, but tonight, Myles Colvin joined in on the fun. Myles had a career night, scoring 20 points, including the aforementioned go-ahead bucket with half a second left on the clock.

Myles started the game strong with this steal and dunk, and he would finish it the same way, strong, boxing out his defender and scoring the game-winning basket.

Maybe something small I noticed, immediately after his game-winning basket Myles sprints down the court to get back on defense. He doesn’t celebrate, doesn’t boast, just gets right back to work, and that my friends is the definiteion of basketball IQ and culture that Coach Painter has instilled in his basketball team.

While Myles stole the show with the game-winner, the normal big three did their thing, combining for 56 of Purdue’s 80 total points.

Yes, then add Myles’ 20 and that group of four scored all but four points for the Boilermakers tonight.

Trey Kaufman-Renn continued his ascension as Purdue’s next great post player, posting a ling of 25 and 13, he has pushed himself into the Kenpom National Player of the Year Top 10 rankings.

Braden Smith started on fire during the first half, but was held scoreless in the second half until he had a late all free throws and layup, he scored 14 of his 18 in the first half, he added 11 assists and 6 rebounds tonight as well.

Fletcher scored 13, but seemed at times that Ole Miss’ athletic wings stymied him on the perimeter, but when he found wiggle room he made it count, hitting four of seven shots and 3 of 5 from behind the arc. He is sitting right around 60% on the season from deep.

The bench did not provide much tonight, just two points from Caleb Furst, but he did corral four rebounds during his 12 minutes of playing time. Gicarri Harris led the bench with 15 minutes but had 0s all across the box score, and CJ Cox played just five minutes.

Ole Miss took an astounding 36 attempts from deep, hitting 15 of them, but this is a team that ranked 138th nationally coming into the game from deep, whereas their post players have dominated on the year.

Coach Painter and his staff lost all the rim protection they had on the roster when True Freshman Daniel Jacobsen went down with a broken leg. They chose to pack the box and let Ole Miss live and die by the three, and it almost backfired.

But, with how important TKR is to this team on both ends of the floor and rebounding, the goal has to be to protect him at all costs and ensure that foul trouble does not happen.

While watching threes rain down can be stressful, having TKR in foul trouble would be even more so.

This was a gritty win against a well-coached team, Coach Painter has had troubles with Chris Beard in past seasons, but, he found a way tonight.

Purdue will be off until Thursday when they travel to Penn State, which is currently 6-1.