WEST Lafayette, Ind. -- The first second of the annual state of Indiana rivalry game ticked off the clock at 8:01 p.m. to the sound of a roaring Paint Crew in Mackey Arena. Myles Rice collected the tipoff and the Boilermakers and Hoosiers were underway for their first matchup in the 2024-25 season.
Rice dropped the ball down low to Oumar Ballo, who found Mackenzie Mgbako to put Indiana on the board first. In the following 19:41 of play, the Hoosiers played one of their best halves all season.
Led by 24 combined points from Mgbako and Luke Goode, Indiana walked into the locker room at halftime with a 41-37 lead, leaving the Boilermakers’ sixth men in the stands stunned.
Purdue's crowd --- which was stunned for much of the game --- became ecstatic when 11 seconds remained and Rice took the ball down the court, attempting and missing a jumper, which ultimately led to Ballo’s fifth foul of the game. Mike Woodson called a 30-second timeout, as Ballo walked into the huddle visibly frustrated at Rice.
That play not only handed the Boilermakers the ball back, but it handed Purdue its third-straight win over Indiana, defeating the Hoosiers 81-76 on Friday night.
“The effort was there,” Indiana guard Trey Galloway said. “We fought through a bunch of runs, and obviously they went on a bunch of runs. I think just continuing to keep competing was the main thing, just the plays that you had to clean up. That was the difference of the outcome."
However, it wasn’t anything that the Hoosiers did in the first half that needed cleaning. Walking away with a four-point lead over the No. 10 team in the nation, two players scoring in double digits, and shooting 55% from the field, Indiana gave it all, and there was no telling where this game was going to turn.
In the first three minutes of play in the second half, it seemed to be taking a turn for the worse. Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn led the Boilermakers down an 11-1 run, and what was a four-point lead turned into a six-point deficit, as Purdue kicked off the second half with a 48-42 lead.
However, then led by Mgbako, Indiana went on an 11-0 run of its own, retaking that four-point lead they’d had a hold of just 11 minutes prior. Mgbako finished the game leading all scorers with 25 points, his most since the Hoosiers’ win over Providence in the Bahamas.
“I thought the guys that have been in this atmosphere, like Anthony (Leal) and (Mackenzie), you know, Mack stepped up and played good,” Woodson said. “He played extremely well. I mean, you know, the key guys, the veteran guys that’ve been around me, they know what it’s like to play in this building, and it’s not easy.”
It certainly wasn’t easy, but there’s no doubt in saying that the Hoosiers played with the most fight they’ve played all season. Four Hoosiers scored in double digits, and Indiana played its best game of the season against the 10th-ranked team in the country.
But it was a game that once again came down to the final seconds, for the second straight game.
Those final seconds boiled down to Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn at the charity stripe, knocking down both free throws to put the Boilermakers up by two possessions, following an overthrown pass by Galloway, right into Kaufman-Renn’s hands.
“You can’t lead into that, that’s one play,” Woodson said. “We had numerous plays that we could have made that we didn’t make.”
Yet another Quad 1 opportunity coming up just short for the Hoosiers, but there’s no doubt that Indiana has a couple more chances ahead of them to get itself back on track.
The Hoosiers will next look to get back in the win column as they travel to face No.17 Wisconsin, in hopes of taking hold of its first win over the Badgers in Madison since 1998.
