Indiana fell once again to Purdue, 81-69, making it 11 of the last 12 meetings resulting in an IU loss.
It was a rocky first half, but the Hoosiers’ effort in fighting through adversity was admirable. Trayce Jackson-Davis picked up his second foul of the game with 9:57 left in the first half, which placed him on the bench for almost all of the half. When he was in the game, Jackson-Davis was unstoppable. He finished with 24 points in 27 minutes.
The Hoosiers managed to hang in the game and rally from a 12-point deficit in the final eight minutes of the first half.
At the eight-minute mark, Purdue was scoring an astronomical 1.722 points per possession. Indiana did a poor job of closing out on Boilermaker shooters, resulting in Purdue making six of their first seven threes, finishing 11-of-17 for the game.
Purdue seemed to be pulling away when they extended the lead to nine points with 1:30 left in the first half, but Jerome Hunter and Armaan Franklin contributed two baskets to cut the lead to just four at the half.
The second half started as a back-and-forth affair. Both teams struggled to get a grip on the game and kept trading baskets. However, Purdue began to pull ahead around the 10-minute mark and never looked back. The Boilermakers appeared to completely figure out Indiana’s offense and the Hoosiers went cold.
Trevion Williams dominated inside for the Boilers, scoring 20 points and pulling in ten rebounds. The rest of Purdue’s offense consisted of a balanced spread of three-pointers.
Indiana did a bad job of converting on free throws and three-pointers tonight, which majorly contributed to the loss. Defensively, they gave up far too many clean looks to Purdue shooters and paid the price.
The problems that have plagued Archie Miller’s team the last three years reared their ugly head in the second half of this game. The beauty of sports is that the Hoosiers have a long time until the end of the season and will have many chances to grow as a unit.
Armaan Franklin added 14 points and seven rebounds for the Hoosiers and Race Thompson chipped in 13 points and 10 rebounds.
Jaden Ivey added 13 points for Purdue off of the bench.
Miller’s inability to defeat strong Big Ten opponents is a barrier to Indiana becoming the team fans expect them to be. Miller is now 0-6 against Purdue, and frustration is mounting on all sides.
The Hoosiers will get a chance to redeem themselves against No. 5 Iowa next Thursday.
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