Boilermakers suffer first Big Ten loss
By JAMES HOWELL, Jr.
ISL Purdue Writer
The Purdue Boilermakers suffered their first conference loss of the season on Wednesday night when they traveled to No. 4 Wisconsin. The Badgers pulled away late in the game to win 62-55.
Throughout the game, the Boilermakers kept pace with the Badgers and even led at a few moments late. However, with six minutes remaining, the Badgers jumped out to a 7-point lead to cruise home.
Preseason Big Ten player of the year Frank Kaminsky led the way for the Badgers with 21 points and four rebounds.
“Frank’s a great player,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “He’s worked really hard. He can hurt you in so many ways. It’s easy to say how to stop him, but it’s really hard to do. Keep him in front of you, take him out of rhythm, (and) don’t let him get to the sweet spot. But he’s kind of a big guard. He can dribble, and he’s not just a one-way driver. He can play in the mid-post, low-post, he can play on the perimeter. That gives us some difficulties. We put our four on him and tried to knock him out of the post the best we could.”
Jon Octeus led Purdue with 15 points and eight rebounds. Freshman Isaac Haas played his best game of the conference season by scoring 11 points for the Boilermakers, but he played just 17 minutes and collected three fouls.
The Boilermakers shot 51 percent compared to the Badgers 43 percent, but foul issues easily negated the offensive advantages the team had, though. Wisconsin made 25 of 31 free throws while Purdue made just 3 of 7.
“The game was won and lost at the free throw line,” Painter said. “We had to be able to get to the free-throw line, and we didn’t, and they were able to get there.”
As for where the Boilermakers need to improve, Painter didn’t struggle to state what it is.
“Well, you can’t control how someone calls the game,” he said. “When you guys talk about life on the road, that’s one of the variables. I don’t think we did a very good job adjusting to how things were called. Things were called touch on the perimeter and there was a blood bath inside, and those weren’t called. We didn’t do a good job of playing through that on the perimeter. We had to do a better job of moving our feet, and we didn’t. We had to do a better job of just staying positive when we didn’t get some calls. But that’s part of it. That’s life on the road. Hopefully we can learn from it, and then next time it happens we can make the adjustments.”
The Boilermakers will now head back to West Lafayette to prepare for their third conference home game of the season on Jan. 10. Purdue will host the Maryland Terrapins with a tip scheduled for 2:15 p.m.
