Purdue shot 64.7 percent from the field, the best performance ever against Indiana, and crushed the Hoosiers 93-64 Friday night at Mackey Arena. The Boilermakers avenged an earlier loss to Indiana, who has now been blown out twice this week.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The optimists in Hoosier Nation will take Friday's result with a grain of salt, happy that Indiana has split its season series with arch-rival Purdue. That's good in the first year of the Darian DeVries era.
But for the pessimists in the fan base — which has grown dramatically in the past two decades — they'll take it another way. They were completely embarrassed by their Hoosiers in a 93-64 beatdown at Mackey Arena, the worst loss in the series in 57 years.
The 29-point margin was Purdue’s largest against Indiana since a 120-76 win on March 8, 1969. It is the eighth-largest margin of victory among Purdue’s 129 victories over Indiana and the third-largest since the 1912-13 season.
And the fact that it comes on the heels of a 20-point loss last Sunday at Illinois, it's made for an ugly week. No. 7 Purdue was coming off a bad loss, too, losing at home to No. 1 Michigan 91-80 on Tuesday night.
The Boilers came ready to play. The Hoosiers? Not so much.
“Nights like these are hard,'' DeVries said. "Obviously, everybody knows how good Purdue is. And when they're playing at a level like this, it makes it incredibly challenging. So, I thought they were terrific, and responded incredibly well from a tough loss against Michigan.
"Michigan wasn't losing to anybody that night in the last game. But I thought they did everything they needed to do to put us in some tough spots tonight and took advantage of it, especially on the offensive end. We just could never get them under control.”
Purdue shot a season-high 64.7 percent from the field, the highest percentage ever in a game against Indiana. It's also the highest percentage ever during the 21-year Matt Painter era at Purdue. Even though the two teams are 5-5 in their last 10 meetings, Purdue is now 17-6 against Indiana since the 2013-14 season.
Purdue's seniors led the way, as usual. Trey Kaufman-Renn had 20 points on 8-of-10 shjooting, Fletcher Loyer had 18 points on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting night, including four three-pointes, and Braden Smith had 15 points and eight assists. Freshman Omar Mayer had 18 off the bench on 6-of-8 shooting.
They also outrebounded Indiana 30-15.
“I thought the biggest thing was their inside presence, because it is a challenge for us to either play one-on-one or make the decision to double,'' DeVries said. "It seemed like they had an answer for whatever we did. So, we doubled some, we didn't double some. We came with different guys, and they seemed to have a solution for a lot of it.''
Purdue never trailed and were up double digits with 6:52 to go in the first half. They stretched the lead to 17 at the break, leading 46-29. The Boilermakers did a great job in shutting down Indiana leading scorer Lamar Wilkerson, who missed all three shots and had just two free throws in the first half.
The lead reached 34 late in the game and ended with a 29-point loss. Wilkerson did have a great second half, scoring 18 points but it was too little and too late. Purdue averaged 1.55 points per possession, the fifth-highest total in school history, and scored on 21 of its 29 second-half possession.
Tayton Conerway and Reed Bailey had 12 and 10 points respectively off the Indiana bench, and DeVries had 11.
Indiana starters Nick Dorn, Conor Enright and Sam Alexis combined to score just eight points on 3-of-12 shooting in 65 minutes of action. Dorn, who's been in a major slump, didn't score at all.
Like a lot of teams in the BigTen, Purdue plays well at home and the fans were loud and rowdy all night now, especially coming off Tuesday's home loss. For Smith, Loyer and Kaufman-Renn, all Indiana kids, this was their last game at Mackey against IU. The intense atmosphere was a lot for Indiana to overcome.
“It's an incredible environment, and it's a tough place to play. It's what makes this home court advantage what it is,'' DeVries said. "These type of environments do present some challenges and stuff. And that's what makes college basketball so great.
"We have a similar advantage at our place, great environment. It's tough to come in there and win. It's tough to come in here and win. You've got to play well. And I thought we didn't do our part tonight and certainly Purdue was on point tonight. They played really well.”
Indiana will have to hope they'll feel that home-court advantage themselves, with three straight home games on the horizon. They play Northwestern on Tuesday, Michigan State on Sunday and Minnesota on March 4. They'll close out the regular season at Ohio State on March 7.
The Hoosiers (17-10, 8-8 in the Big Ten) need at least two wins to feel comfortable about getting an NCAA Tournament bid, and a third win might eliminate all doubt. Indiana hasn't made the tournament since 2023, and this is a goal they want to achieve.
So there's work to be done. They'll flush this loss, and move on. There's still a lot to accomplish.
“Obviously it's pretty difficult, but I think it's important for us to understand that we've got four big games coming up down the stretch, and we're playing for a lot right now,'' Indiana senior forward Tucker DeVries said. "I think it's important that there's not much that we can do right now about the (Purdue) game, but we can learn from it and move on to the next one.
"We have to get ready for these next four games that are massive for us trying to make the NCAA Tournament, which we've certainly put ourself in a position to play meaningful games coming down the stretch of the season.”