Behind hot shooting, sound rebounding, and a little luck, the Purdue Boilermakers beat the Ole Miss Rebels 80-78 on Friday to claim the 2nd Annual Rady Children’s Invitational title in San Diego. Combined with their semifinal win over North Carolina State on Thursday, Purdue had the privilege of packing the tournament’s championship trophy on their flight back to West Lafayette.
The victory pushed the Boilermakers’ non-conference record to 7-1 before their Big 10 schedule begins on Thursday, December 5, in State College, Pennsylvania against Penn State.
Purdue Burned The Nets And Manned The Boards In The First Half
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Friday marked the first meeting between the Boilermakers and the Rebels since Jan. 4, 1934 — a 61-25 Purdue victory in West Lafayette.
Purdue started the game on fire, bolting out to a 19-5 lead after Braden Smith‘s three-point basket with 12:11 left in the half. They stretched the lead to as much as 17 twice in the first 20 minutes; Fletcher Loyer hit from distance for the latter instance to make the score 30-13 with 6:46 remaining.
However, Ole Miss fought back, cutting the lead to single digits, 40-31, thanks to a Malik Dia layup with just over a minute remaining, before both teams settled for a Purdue 42-34 lead.
Trey Kaufman-Renn paced Purdue with 14 points and 5 boards in the opening half. Smith also chipped in 14 points and five assists as well, hitting on 5 of his 6 field goal attempts, including 4 of 5 from three-point distance.
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While Ole Miss struggled from the field, only making 38.7% of their shots in the first half, Purdue connected at an impressive 58.3% clip and out-rebounded the Rebels 18-13 over the opening stanza.
Both teams took good care of the ball, only committing four turnovers each. The difference, though, was that Purdue converted 10 points out of those four Rebels miscues, while Ole Miss did not take advantage of any of the Boilermaker errors.
Ole Miss Made Life Difficult For The Boilers In The Second Half
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The halftime discussion in the Rebels’ locker room seemed to work wonders for their shooting accuracy; Ole Miss made their first four three-point attempts to cut the lead to 54-49 before the 16:00 media timeout. Purdue’s lead was snipped down to a single point, 58-57, with 12:21 remaining in the game.
After an empty possession by Purdue, Ole Miss then converted two free throws at the 12:11 mark to take their first lead of the afternoon. In all, the Rebels hit their first six shots from distance in the second half, and when Jaylen Murray hit yet another three ball with 5:19 remaining, the Purdue deficit ballooned to seven at 75-68.
The Boilers were far from finished and went on a 10-0 spurt, the last points coming from Smith on a driving layup, to forge ahead by three points with two and a half minutes left.
Murray tried for a step-back three with just under a minute remaining, but his effort to take the lead bounced off the rim and was claimed by Myles Colvin. After Purdue called a timeout with 39 seconds remaining, the Boilers failed to put up a shot and turned the ball over leading to a Matthew Murrel breakaway layup to tie the score at 78.
Boilermakers head coach Matt Painter called his last timeout with 14.7 seconds left to set up the final shot. Smith took the in-bounds pass, dribbled to the front court, and took a tough fadeaway jumper from the baseline that hit nothing but Colvin’s hands, and he converted the air ball into an easy layup with 0.6 seconds to go.
A last-second desperation heave from Ole Miss fell harmlessly to the ground, and Purdue claimed a tough, gut-check win despite being outscored 44-38 in the second half.
Kaufman-Renn finished with 25 points and Colvin poured in 20 to lead Purdue.
