IU falls to Purdue in West Lafayette

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. --- Facing a veteran Purdue team on the road, the young IU women’s basketball team proved to be no match.

The Boilermakers put the burner in Barnburner Trophy Friday night with an 86-53 blowout win over the Hoosiers.

The defeat was the 20th straight conference road loss for IU. It hasn’t conquered a Big Ten team since beating Illinois in Champaign on Feb. 10, 2011. The 33-point loss is also the largest margin of defeat of the season for IU.

“Unfortunately, with young teams, sometimes your lack of offense affects the way you play defense,” Miller said. “At times, I thought our attitude was hurt at the defensive end.”

The Hoosiers have lost three straight conference games and fell to 1-3 in Big Ten play, 14-3 overall. Purdue improved to 2-3 in Big Ten play, 12-5 overall.

IU struggled from the field and finished the game shooting 25 percent from the field. Miller said the team missed 17 shots attempted less than four feet from the rim.  

“We didn’t very well in the post offensively at all, and could not get points in the paint,” he said. “And then it just snowballed.”

The snowball got rolling when seniors KK Houser and Courtney Moses scored a combined 19 points as part of a 33-9 run in the second half.

Houser and Moses combined for 46 points on 52.9 percent shooting from the field by the end of the game.

“It was huge,” Purdue junior forward Whitney Bays said. “They’re the leaders of this team and they willed us all the way home to the victory.”

The senior guards extended their second-half damage on a combined point total of 38 early, which exceeded the Hoosiers’ team total of 33 with fewer than 16 minutes to play in the second half.

Houser had 13 points in the first half on 5-of-12 shooting.

“We looked our kids at halftime and said, ‘KK has the ability to shoot some of the shots we’re giving her and she didn’t take them,’ ” he said. “ ‘Please do not be fooled that we are guarding her.’ ”

While the Boilermakers showed their seniority on the court, the Hoosiers their displayed youth. Miller said he saw five freshmen out on the floor at times.  

“It’s a core group to build on, and as we put two or three recruiting classes behind it we’ll continue to get better,” he said.

Freshmen guards Taylor Agler and Karlee McBride hit back-to-back 3-pointers to give IU a 25-24 lead with five minutes and 46 seconds remaining in the first half.

It would be the Hoosiers’ only lead.

Purdue coach Sharon Versyp called a timeout after the Hoosiers took the lead. She said she didn’t need to say anything for her team to respond.

Out of the timeout, Purdue closed the final five minutes and 36 seconds remaining in the first half on a 17-3 run. The Boilermakers then opened the second half on a 33-9 run – a combined run of 50-12 from the 5:36 mark in the first half to the 11:36 mark in the second half.

The short amount of preparation time between games hurt IU, who Miller said prides itself on preparation. He said he counted 42 of Purdue’s plays he wanted his team to look over coming into the game.

“We flew in from Madison basically after midnight on Thursday morning,” he said. “We weren’t going to be able to go over 42 plays in one day for this game.”

Miller said the media witnessed what it looks like when a group of talented seniors faces freshmen guards.

“Give credit to Purdue, “Miller said. “Obviously they haven’t forgotten about last year.”