Purdue rolls Cleveland State
By KEITH CARRELL
@BoilerColts
ISL Purdue Writer
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue ended Cleveland State’s two-game win streak with a 77-53 win in Mackey Arena Saturday afternoon in its last game before final exams.
The Boilermakers (8-2) led wire-to-wire and advanced to an early 18-8 lead by getting into the holiday spirit and sharing well. Six different Boilers got in the scoring column during that stretch, and of the seven made field goals, six were assisted.
Cleveland State’s tallest player was Demonte Flannigan at 6-foot-8, but that didn’t prevent the Vikings (3-6) from winning the opening tip over 7-2 Isaac Haas.
Haas was engaged early, though, by snaring an early defensive rebound and scoring the game’s first points with an inside jumper. From there, Cleveland State tried to copy the Louisville playbook and began to front Haas which caused him to struggle to contribute early, missing his next four field goal attempts. For the game, Haas was able to settle down and provide a solid stat line to lead all scorers with 14 points while adding seven rebounds and three blocks.
See all the highlights from #Purdue‘s 77-53 victory over Cleveland State.https://t.co/5lEB7szLum
— Purdue Basketball (@BoilerBall) December 10, 2016
Purdue continued to extend the lead in the opening stanza by not only sharing the ball, but also playing its best on-the-ball defense of the season and being active on the glass. By the end of the half, Cleveland State had committed eight turnovers (five were steals by the Boilermakers) and had a number of others batted out of bounds by Purdue’s guards, led by Carsen Edwards. Purdue also outrebounded the Vikings 23-16 through the first twenty minutes; seven boards were on offense resulting in eleven second chance points which helped propel Purdue into a 12-0 run over the first half’s final five minutes to go into intermission with a 41-20 lead.
“It was huge, especially since they started making shots right before that and they were making a little run, had a little momentum going in,” Dakota Mathias stated on the 12-0 run to end the half before continuing, “That was a big thing the last media timeout, we had to close the half strong and that’s what we did.”
Edwards continued to start for Purdue, with Vincent Edwards coming off of the bench for the third consecutive contest. The move by head coach Matt Painter appears to be working for everyone as C. Edwards has helped set the tone early and V. Edwards has steadied the second unit to extend momentum and provide a fresh attack inside if and when Haas or Caleb Swanigan get in early foul trouble. In the first half V. Edwards contributed eight points, four rebounds (scoring on all three of his offensive boards), two assists, and a steal.
Painter when asked about how V. Edwards has returned to some of his better play mentioned, “I thought that run at the end of the first half, he had a lot to do with that. He made a couple of big time plays, got some offensive rebounds, and really gave us some good energy.”
The second half saw a game of runs back and forth, begun by a 13-4 run early for the Vikings with the Boilermakers mishandling the ball a number of times before the first media timeout. Out of the break, Purdue responded in kind by going on a 10-0 run of their own to extend the lead to 57-33 and force Cleveland State head coach Gary Waters to use his final timeout with 13:02 left in the game. From there the play settled into a back and forth pace that saw Purdue maintain a lead around 20 points for the remainder of the contest.
The first media timeout of the game saw Purdue’s recently announced head football coach, Jeff Brohm, be introduced to the Mackey faithful, resulting in a standing ovation from the crowd. The short presentation and speech ended with the coach’s mantra, Let’s Play Football, which the school and team have quickly adopted. The saying gained notoriety from Brohm’s stint as quarterback in the now-defunct XFL (if you haven’t seen the oft-shared video yet, do yourself a favor and search YouTube for Jeff Brohm’s Famous Words).
Photos from #Purdue‘s 77-53 win over Cleveland State.https://t.co/XrsxZK6jES pic.twitter.com/AxOVchEJWO
— Purdue Basketball (@BoilerBall) December 10, 2016
Quick Hits:
The 53 points scored by Cleveland State were the fewest allowed by Purdue this season… Spike Albrecht remains injured and did not dress and was not present for the game, he attended one of his graduate course classes during the game… Cleveland State starter Bobby Word led the Vikings in scoring with 14, 11 in the second half; Rob Edwards was the only other Viking in double figures with 10… Ryan Cline attempted (and made) his first shot inside the arc this season with fewer than three minutes left in the game… Cline and Dakota Mathias continued their hot streaks from three by going a combined 6-11 versus the Vikings… Cleveland State did not attempt a free throw in the first half, extending Mackey opponents’ drought to 72 minutes (November 26 vs NJIT) before Kasheem Thomas sank Cleveland State’s first attempt eight minutes into the second half… Caleb Swanigan secured another double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds, but he nearly had a blunder of triple-double by also accounting for eight of Purdue’s 15 turnovers… Purdue will need to get the recurring turnover concerns under control if they want a good chance at winning their first ever Crossroads Classic game this coming Saturday when they face Notre Dame (the Irish nearly defeated top-ranked Villanova in a neutral site contest shortly after this game ended).
