Boilermakers handle Hawkeyes
Once the Purdue basketball team lost in overtime to Northwestern on Friday night, the Hawkeyes knew that they would be running into a motivated group of Boilermakers. Couple that with the fact that Mackey Arena has been an unfriendly venue for Iowa over the years and it felt like a challenging game was coming.
They were that and then some as Purdue rolled Iowa, 87-68 in the Hawkeyes opening game of Big Ten play in the 2023-24 season. With the loss, Iowa falls to 5-3 on the season. The Hawkeyes will return to non-conference play on Thursday when they travel to Ames to face the in-state rival Cyclones.
It was apparent early on that the Boilermakers were locked in and ready to play on Monday night. All American Zach Edey was scoring and rebounding early and often. He scored the first two points of the game from the foul line and Fletcher Loyer followed that up with a three point field goal to give the Boilermakers an early 5-2 lead. Edey finished the game with 25 points and 12 rebounds.
Tony Perkins tried his best to keep the Hawkeyes within shouting distance. His old fashioned three point play pulled Iowa to within five at 12-7. But, Edey was just too much to handle for Iowa. He completed his own old school three point play to give Purdue a 20-10 edge. Ben Krikke scored a layup to pull within eight, but that was the last time Iowa was within single digits.
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Another Loyer three made the score 32-14 and then Edey scored again and the Boilers had doubled up Iowa, 36-18. Then an Edey layup put Purdue up 40-20. The lead kept growing as Mason Gillis drained a three point to give Purdue a 45-24 edge at the break.
The onslaught continued in the second half with Lance Jones doing the damage early and often after the break. He scored the first five points after the break to push the lead to 50-24. The lead hit 30 points on a layup by Trey Kaufman-Renn to make it 62-32 as Purdue carved up the Iowa extended pressure.
Iowa was led in scoring by Krikke, who had 16 points. Perkins was the only other Hawkeye in double figures with 12 points. Overall, Iowa shot 38.5% from the floor, which Purdue was 52.3% and had five players reach double figures.
