Big Ten Final takeaways: Purdue holds on for first title since 2009, but raises questions
There was nothing pretty about the way Purdue nearly gagged away its second Big Ten Tournament title in school history.
The top-seeded Boilermakers led No. 10 Penn State by 17 points with 6:18 remaining and then — after a series of turnovers, missed free throws and confounding decisions that allowed the Nittany Lions to claw their way toward the precipice of a monumental upset — they needed a last-second deflection by star center Zach Edey to disrupt a potential game-winning shot attempt in the waning seconds.
A final score of Purdue 67, Penn State 65 means that in the end, the job was done, but there was little to like about the Boilermakers' last few minutes of basketball entering the NCAA Tournament, where they're likely to be given a No. 1 seed for the first time in 27 years.
Edey posted his second consecutive 30-10 game by scoring 30 points and grabbing 13 rebounds in a third outstanding performance in as many days. The Boilermakers won despite shooting 39% from the field and 21% from 3-point range due in large part to their unstoppable force on the interior.
Guard Camren Wynter led the Nittany Lions with 14 points, four rebounds and four assists but traveled as he maneuvered toward what might have been a game-winning shot at the buzzer. Penn State was seeking its first Big Ten Tournament title in school history and would have been the lowest-seeded champion in the event's 25-year history.
Flipping the script
Conventional wisdom suggested Penn State's clearest path to victory in the Big Ten title game would be to offset a clear deficiency in the low post, where the immovable Edey lives and preys, with the kind of 3-point potency that got the Nittany Lions to Sunday courtesy of consecutive wins over Illinois, Northwestern and Indiana. Head coach Micah Shrewsberry's team averaged 7.7 made 3s per game during that stretched and outscored its opponents 69 to 54 from beyond the arc.
But a program that relies on the 3-point shot for more than 43% of its offensive output finally chilled during the first half of its fourth game in as many days. Sharpshooters Andrew Funk (2.9 made 3s per game) and Seth Lundy (2.6 made 3s per game) were silenced in the early going Sunday as the Boilermakers made a concerted effort to run them off the 3-point line with hard defensive close-outs. Penn State's only 3-point field goals in the first half came from reserve Myles Dread, a 35.6% perimeter shooter, whose pair of triples kept the Nittany Lions within single digits of Purdue at the break, 35-27.
That the Boilermakers paired 15 first-half points from Edey with a plus-6 advantage from the 3-point line surely pleased Painter as he addressed his players in the locker room, the team's first Big Ten Tournament title since 2009 a mere 20 minutes away. The numerical advantage on the scoreboard would have mattered more to him than the 4-for-15 percentage.
Senior guard David Jenkins Jr. continued the hot-shooting form he enjoyed during Purdue's first two games in Chicago by making three of his first five attempts en route to 11 critical points. The transfer from Utah, whose collegiate career included previous stops at UNLV and South Dakota State, shot a combined 5-for-8 from beyond the arc in wins over Illinois and Ohio State, and his explosion on Sunday meant he finished the tournament 8-for-14 on 3s.
In a sign that nearly everything went Purdue's way in the first half, maligned shooting guard Fletcher Loyer — a true freshman who'd turned frigid by making just 12 of his last 54 3-pointers dating to Jan. 19 — buried an off-balance, desperation heave from the right wing as the shot clock horn sounded.
Better than the rest
In a season that will continue to net him plenty of hardware, Edey arrived at the Big Ten Tournament with a handful of honor already in tow. He was a unanimous selection for the All-Big Ten first team. He was an easy choice for Big Ten Player of the Year. And he is just the fifth player in league history to lead the conference in scoring, secure a Big Ten regular season title and then be named player of the year.
Purdue’s march through the Big Ten tournament doubled as what Purdue hopes will be back-to-back coronations. He was the most dominant player on the most dominant team during the league’s 20-game regular season, and then he dominated three consecutive games in the United Center: He had 16 points and 11 rebounds against Rutgers; 32 point and 14 rebounds against Ohio State and 30 points and 13 rebounds to finish the job against Penn State.
The uncomfortable reality for Edey, for Painter, for Purdue is that skeptics will continue to question this team’s ability to win in the NCAA Tournament, something the Boilermakers and its conference brethren have struggled to do in recent years. Not only has the Big Ten wildly underperformed on the sport’s biggest stage — nobody from the league has won a national title since Michigan State in 2000 — but there have been just two national champions featuring a center as their best player in the last 13 years: Duke with Jahlil Okafor in 2015 and Kentucky with Anthony Davis in 2012.
A paragon of consistency, Painter will lead his alma mater into the NCAA Tournament for an eighth consecutive season later this week. The Boilermakers have averaged 25.3 wins per season during that stretch — including a 30-win campaign in 2017-18 — but they’ve advanced beyond the Sweet 16 just once, in 2019, when a loss to Virginia in overtime kept them from the Final Four. For all of the wins Purdue has amassed under Painter and his legendary predecessor, Gene Keady, the school’s last trip to the national semifinals came in 1980 when its current coach was just 10 years old.
Any rewrite to what has become a painfully familiar narrative for the Boilermakers is tied to how far Edey can take them.
Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.
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