Sunday, March 3, 2013

Basketball Recap: Iowa 58 - Purdue 48

After the Northwestern game last week, I wasn't alone in looking forward to Wednesday night.  Purdue was playing a winnable road game and had just played one of their best games of the season.  Maybe the bye week fixed all their problems!  Or maybe not...

1) This game was gift-wrapped for the Boilers.  The Hawkeyes scored their last basket of the first half with 12:42 left, and were leading 15-8 at the time. The halftime score was 23-16, meaning Iowa went nearly 13 minutes without making a basket, and Purdue didn't make up ONE SINGLE POINT on them!  It was a miracle this wasn't a blowout.

2) Terone Johnson's ankle injury really hurt the Boilers.  The team's leading scorer looked all out of sorts when he came back in.  Terone took all 6 of his shots after the injury and every one ended up short (including an airball).  He was clearly having trouble getting any sort of lift on his shot and you could definitely tell he was getting killed on the boards.  Hopefully he's feeling better on Sunday because he definitely wasn't the same player after his injury on Wednesday.

3) Amazingly Purdue fought back into the game and the Boilers were only down 6 with 2 minutes to go. However, Josh Oglesby (0 for 4 prior to the possession) hit an absolute dagger of a three deep into the shot clock to seal the game.  A stop there and those last two minutes could have been pretty exciting...

A disappointing loss in what was most likely Purdue's last chance for a regular season win.  Now it's time to play spoiler!

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