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CHICAGO - Ten days after denying Purdue men's basketball the possibility of an outright Big Ten regular-season championship, Minnesota thwarted the Boilermakers in the conference tournament with a 75-73 quarterfinal win Friday at the United Center.
Co-champion and second-seeded Purdue (23-9) rallied from a 10-point second-half deficit to take a 71-69 lead with 3:40 remaining but was outscored by the seventh-seeded Golden Gophers 6-2 the rest of the way. Carsen Edwards had a decent look at a potential game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer, but his contested shot failed to fall.
"Today was a tough one for us," Purdue head coach Matt Painter said. "We just couldn't make enough plays down the stretch to either get a little bit of a lead or to get them away from us. But you've got to give Minnesota credit; I thought they played well. They did some really good things. They obviously shot the ball extremely well in the first half, and we hung in there and we battled back and put ourselves in a good position. They made a couple more plays than we did."
Minnesota, which beat Purdue 73-69 on March 5 in Minneapolis, led 57-47 with 12:22 to play before the Boilermakers went on a 15-4 run over the next four minutes to take a 62-61 advantage. Nojel Eastern scored seven points and Edwards five during the uprising.
The first half featured 11 lead changes and five ties and ended with Minnesota leading 42-39. Purdue's biggest lead of the game was merely three points at 3-0.
Matt Haarms paced Purdue with 16 points on 8 of 12 shooting from the field. Ryan Cline scored 14 points, while Eastern and Edwards both had 11. Cline dished out eight assists with just one turnover, and Eastern pulled down six rebounds, including three at the offensive end.
The Boilermakers shot 44 percent from the field and just 25 percent from 3-point range (6 of 24). They won the rebounding battle 35-33 and committed only nine turnovers.
But Minnesota (21-12) got huge efforts from Jordan Murphy, who scored 27 points, and Amir Coffey, who tallied 21. As a team, the Gophers shot 50 percent from the field. They drained all five of their 3-pointers in the first half.
Purdue, ranked No. 13 in the country this week, figures to be a No. 3 seed when the NCAA Tournament bracket is unveiled Sunday at 6 p.m. ET. First-round games will be played March 21 and 22.
"There's only one way to look at it after you get beat: Get some rest and try to keep your focus on the NCAA Tournament and find out that first opponent and start to do your homework and figure some things out," Painter said.
CHICAGO - Ten days after denying Purdue men's basketball the possibility of an outright Big Ten regular-season championship, Minnesota thwarted the Boilermakers in the conference tournament with a 75-73 quarterfinal win Friday at the United Center.
Co-champion and second-seeded Purdue (23-9) rallied from a 10-point second-half deficit to take a 71-69 lead with 3:40 remaining but was outscored by the seventh-seeded Golden Gophers 6-2 the rest of the way. Carsen Edwards had a decent look at a potential game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer, but his contested shot failed to fall.
"Today was a tough one for us," Purdue head coach Matt Painter said. "We just couldn't make enough plays down the stretch to either get a little bit of a lead or to get them away from us. But you've got to give Minnesota credit; I thought they played well. They did some really good things. They obviously shot the ball extremely well in the first half, and we hung in there and we battled back and put ourselves in a good position. They made a couple more plays than we did."
Minnesota, which beat Purdue 73-69 on March 5 in Minneapolis, led 57-47 with 12:22 to play before the Boilermakers went on a 15-4 run over the next four minutes to take a 62-61 advantage. Nojel Eastern scored seven points and Edwards five during the uprising.
The first half featured 11 lead changes and five ties and ended with Minnesota leading 42-39. Purdue's biggest lead of the game was merely three points at 3-0.
Matt Haarms paced Purdue with 16 points on 8 of 12 shooting from the field. Ryan Cline scored 14 points, while Eastern and Edwards both had 11. Cline dished out eight assists with just one turnover, and Eastern pulled down six rebounds, including three at the offensive end.
The Boilermakers shot 44 percent from the field and just 25 percent from 3-point range (6 of 24). They won the rebounding battle 35-33 and committed only nine turnovers.
But Minnesota (21-12) got huge efforts from Jordan Murphy, who scored 27 points, and Amir Coffey, who tallied 21. As a team, the Gophers shot 50 percent from the field. They drained all five of their 3-pointers in the first half.
Purdue, ranked No. 13 in the country this week, figures to be a No. 3 seed when the NCAA Tournament bracket is unveiled Sunday at 6 p.m. ET. First-round games will be played March 21 and 22.
"There's only one way to look at it after you get beat: Get some rest and try to keep your focus on the NCAA Tournament and find out that first opponent and start to do your homework and figure some things out," Painter said.