The Purdue Boilermakers basketball team avoided the temptation to turn its trip to the Bahamas into a fun-in-the-sun vacation. They instead are treating it as a business trip and took care of their work on Thursday.
The Boilers overcame a gritty effort by the Memphis Tigers on Thursday, winning 81-70. They will take on the #15 Texas Tech Red Raiders in Friday’s final.
The television announcers described the crowd as “98%” of the 2,000 fans in the Baha Mar resort’s makeshift arena as wearing black and gold. Those loyal Boiler fans left the premises relieved at the result.
Thursday’s semifinal game against Penny Hardaway‘s Memphis Tigers started auspiciously for the Boilermakerss. The Tigers raced out to an 11-4 lead just three and a half minutes in, thanks to hitting three of their first four three-point attempts. On the other side of the court, Purdue was struggling to score early, having missed their first four shots from distance.
Memphis’ fire to begin the game impressed Boilermakers’ head coach Matt Painter.
“I thought Coach [Penny] Hardaway had his team ready to play,” he said. “He started the game with a lot of length [on the floor], and we missed some shots.”
A 9-3 Boilermaker run, punctuated by an Omer Mayer shot from distance, drew Purdue to within 16-13 with 12:42 left in the half. Two Oscar Cluff free throws, three and a half minutes later, gave the Boilers their first lead at 19-18.
C.J. Cox, who enjoyed his finest night of the season with 18 points, drilled a triple with 5:21 to go before halftime to extend Purdue’s lead to 28-21.
The Tigers were undaunted. They reeled off a 12-2 run and reclaimed the lead, 33-30, with just under a minute to go in the half. Purdue rebounded to capture momentum going into the intermission, first with a Meyer triple, then Braden Smith heaved up an off-balance, bank-shot three at the half’s final buzzer. Smith’s first field goal of the game gave the Boilers the slimmest of leads, 36-35.
After being limited to just two first-half points, Boilermaker guard Fletcher Loyer went off. To go along with two additional threes from Cox, Loyer drilled two shots from beyond the arc of his own, and that resulted in Purdue’s largest lead, 55-48, with 12:28 remaining.
Loyer finished the game with a team-high 20 points.
For the next five minutes, both teams traded punches that were described as alley-oop dunks. Three such plays, two by Purdue and one by Memphis, occurred on consecutive trips to both offensive ends. As a result, and due to a 9-0 Tiger run, Memphis took a 61-59 lead with 7:54 to go.
That’s when things got interesting.
Cluff and Tiger Aaron Bradshaw collided on the Purdue defensive end. Bradshaw was knocked to the ground, and he stormed up and chested up to Cluff, wagging a finger in the Boiler big man’s face. The referees deliberated and decided to impose a technical foul on Bradshaw, thereby disqualifying him from the game due to his fifth foul.
Up to that point, the game was extremely physical and endured many questionable foul calls for both teams, and that led to several players from either side experiencing foul trouble. That included a frustrated Trey Kaufman-Renn, who earned a technical foul with 51 seconds to go in the first half, making that his third personal. Due to that, Painter was forced to keep him out of the first eight minutes of the second half, and the senior forward ended up fouling out with 2:15 to go and the game still in doubt.
Such failure to control his emotions was not lost on Painter, who acknowledged the need for TKR and others to improve.
“Emotional people in basketball and in business, they’re not good decision-makers,” he explained. “TK not being able to start the second half or finish the second half is because of him getting frustrated and saying something and getting a technical.”
Loyer knocked down the two free throws and tied the game at 61, but the resilient Tigers did not go away. Sincere Parker converted a layup with just over seven minutes remaining, and their lead was 64-61.
From that point on, Purdue took over to salt the game away. They finished the game on a 20-6 run by taking advantage of Memphis’ cold shooting streak. Following the Tigers’ first three-minute barrage, they went just 1-for-15 for the remaining 36+ minutes of the game.
When asked what the value of a game like this is, one where his team overcame physical play and questionable calls, Painter recognized the need for Purdue to improve in this area.
“There are certain things we can’t control,” he explained. “Learn to play the game and move to the next play and not be emotional. That’s what a real player does. I don’t think we did a good job of that (tonight).”
Smith made just two of his 14 field goal attempts for five points, but he did dish out 11 assists to contribute to the winning cause.
Painter likely would have guessed the Boilermakers’ doom had someone told him that his star point guard would shoot 14% from the field. Add in that three of his big men would endure foul trouble for most of the game, and a loss would seem certain. His top-ranked team found a way despite all of that to win.
Purdue survived upset-minded Memphis, but the tests get more and more severe, starting with Friday’s championship game against Texas Tech. The Boilermakers need to play a complete game and control the controllables. Harnessing their emotions would be a great place to start to stay perfect this season.
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