Zach Edey's game-winner delivers Purdue another key Big Ten road victory

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Zach Edey‘s bucket with 2.2 seconds left earned third-ranked Purdue yet another key Big Ten win, a harrowing 64-63 win at Michigan State.

As Michigan State had done virtually the whole game, they left Mady Sissoko to fight Edey one on one in the paint. For the most part, the strategy gave the Spartans a chance. Edey joked — sort of — that he could have scored 40 had he not missed a number of high-percentage shots.

Instead he settled for a mere 32, the final pair the biggest of all.

Fletcher Loyer floated a long entry pass from the left wing. Edey caught it, motioned baseline, then spun through Sissoko for a gentle lay-in.

“I was kind of expecting some kind of double, but they’d been doing that the whole game,” Edey said. “They were just going one on one with some hard scrapes. It didn’t shock me, but I was expecting some kind of double team.”

It didn’t come, not like the one Edey saw at Ohio State when he hit Loyer for the game-winning three.

Seconds after Edey scored, Tyson Walker’s final heave at the buzzer — probably a better look than Purdue would have liked to allow with 1.8 seconds on the clock, even though Walker was coming across his body — missed everything and the Boilermakers celebrated their fourth Big Ten road win in as many tries.

And so ended an epic head-to-head showdown of individual stars.

Edey’s final bucket one-upped Tyson Walker, who scored 30, and dropped 12 in a row late in the game for the Spartans, including a go-ahead jumper with 10.8 seconds on the clock.

The Boilermakers led 24-11 to open the game, but were subsequently outscored 19-3 between the end of the first half and start of the second.

Fletcher Loyer scored 17 points, 11 of them in the final five-and-a-half minutes.

PDF: Purdue-Michigan State statistics

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ZACH EDEY HAD TO DELIVER FOR PURDUE, AND DID

Look at Purdue’s recent history against Michigan State, how the Spartans have essentially made the Boilermaker big men beat them with two-point shots. Very similar to how Trevion Williams did it during the COVID-year game at the Breslin Center, Edey delivered.

For much of the game, the math wasn’t lining up perfectly for Purdue and Edey. In the first half, he made just 40 percent on shots he might normally make 60 percent on. He’s dead on — and maybe underselling — when he says he could have scored 40, as he finished 13-of-26 under game conditions in which he could easily have made 18- or even 20- of-26.

Those efficiency gaps were a big part of the reason a 24-11 Purdue lead in the first half gave way to the 19-3 Spartan run that followed.

“I thought I was getting good shots,” Edey said. “That’s one thing (Painter) always says, ‘Don’t get discouraged taking good shots.’ A lot of shots I was missing were just routine hooks for me.”

Purdue had to win the post by a wide margin, and had to control the glass against an atypically average rebounding team. The Boilermakers got outrebounded, but Edey was far from the issue. He got 17 of ’em. The issue was the long rebounds that Michigan State either ran down or that ran down Michigan State, one or the other.

But though Edey wasn’t maxing out his productivity for much of the game, he was there when Purdue needed him. A reporter after the game articulated the Edey Factor well when they described his presence as a “safety net,” the overwhelming nature of that matchup always being there for Purdue to leverage.

Purdue knew where the ball was going. Michigan State knew where the ball was going, and Edey won the game.

“He’s definitely a safety net for all of us,” Painter said, “especially in late-game situations.”

FLETCHER LOYER CARRIED PURDUE

While the box score suggests this game coming down to Zach Edey scoring two more points than Tyson Walker, Walker likely have gotten the better end of it had it not been for Fletcher Loyer‘s boldness and brilliance in the final minutes of his first visit to the arena that served as his introduction to college basketball, really.

When Loyer got out in transition off a Michigan State turnover, five minutes into the second half, he sniffed out a three-point opportunity somewhere around midcourt, dribbled into his delivery and drilled it. When he saw vulnerability in Michigan State’s late-game ball-screen defense, he split it and scored at the rim, when he wasn’t working his way to the foul line and splashing clutch mid-range jumpers.

“With Zach drawing so much attention all throughout the game, we knew those lanes would be there to drive and the kick-outs would there. It was about being aggressive when I had the ball in my hands and knowing (Purdue) trusts me to do what I can do and playing with confidence.”

Purdue’s now won three razor-thin outcomes on the road in Big Ten play. He led Purdue in scoring during the overtime win at Nebraska. He made the game-winner at Ohio State. At Michigan State, he carried the Boilermakers for the stretch in which the game could have been decided either way, after battling foul trouble in the first half.

At a time of year when freshmen often slow down, Loyer has the pedal to the metal.

“Any time he struggles this year in the first half,” Painter said, “he plays great in the second half.

“He’s very aggressive, very sure of himself. He can make catch-and-shoot threes, shoot off the dribble and get to the basket. He’s very deceiving when he handles the basketball, but he does a good job getting angles and being aggressive. He’s not scared of the moment.”

PURDUE WEATHERED A SPECIAL SURGE

Last year in this building, Tyson Walker beat the Boilermakers with a three in the final seconds.

Today, he always single-handedly took Purdue down.

Walker scored the Spartans’ final 12 points before missing a really difficult buzzer-beater.

He caught Purdue with Zach Edey switched onto him twice and made back-to-back threes. He drove underneath Edey for another bucket and then made a tough shot over Ethan Morton for the go-ahead score after Purdue had knocked out Michigan State’s initial offensive machinations.

Braden Smith, David Jenkins, Edey, Morton, it didn’t matter who guarded Walker. He got his shots and made a bunch of big ones.

“It coming down to the last second was a good experience for us,” Loyer said, “but it was a great team to come out with in such a tough environment.”