IU's youth haunts against Purdue

Veteran experience conquered youthful energy on Friday in West Lafayette—and it wasn’t close.

Purdue’s senior backcourt of KK Houser and Courtney Moses combined to score 46 points—only seven fewer than IU scored as a team—as Purdue handed IU its third consecutive Big Ten loss 86-53.

The senior pair was dominant against IU’s freshman-heavy team.

“I think you saw tonight what seniors playing against freshman look like in the Big Ten when there’s a group of seniors that are as talented as Courtney and KK going against freshman guards the whole time,” IU Coach Curt Miller said.

IU (14-3, 1-3 conference) got hot from behind the arc with a pair of 3-pointers from freshman guards Taylor Agler and Karlee McBride near the end of the first half. Agler’s 3-pointer put IU ahead 25-24, forcing Purdue Coach Sharon Versyp to call a timeout.

During the timeout, Versyp said she gave Houser a look in the huddle, implying that she needed to start scoring before IU took control of the game.

“I just looked at coach and I knew she wasn’t very pleased with us at that time,” Houser said. “So I just knew that we had to get going, pick the momentum back up and get the energy back up.”

Houser did just that, combining with Moses to help Purdue (12-5, 2-3 conference) go on a 13-3 run out of the timeout to take a 37-27 lead. At that point, the senior duo had combined for 27 points, tying IU’s team total which energized the Purdue bench and crowd.

At halftime, Purdue led 41-28. Miller stressed to his team in the locker room that they would need to improve their defense on Houser if they wanted to have a chance to come back.

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

As the second half started, the floodgates opened. Houser began to make the shots Miller warned of.

She hit a 3-pointer on Purdue’s first possession. She followed that up with another jump shot to extend the lead to 20 points.

IU freshman guard Larryn Brooks responded with a 3-pointer of her own to stop the bleeding. That worked only momentarily as Houser followed Brooks’ 3-pointer with back-to-back threes of her own, taking over the court.

The combination of Houser and Moses did most of the scoring in a 50-12 Purdue run that stretched the 5:36 mark in the first half to 11:36 remaining in the second half.
“KK started making threes,” Miller said. “Moses and KK put them on their back in that stretch where it got ugly.”

The two sat for most of the closing minutes of the game when the lead started to get out of hand. But by then, the damage had already been done. The veteran Boilermakers coasted to the 33 point victory against the young, inexperienced Hoosiers.

When IU’s offense began to struggled, Miller said that carried over to the defensive end.

Houser and Moses took advantage, making the difference in Friday’s game.

“It’s tough because when you have a young team and on the floor tonight in the first half I looked out there and we had five freshman at times on the floor together,” Miller said. “Unfortunately with young teams sometimes your lack of offense affects the way you play defense.”