PORTLAND, Ore. — The No. 24-ranked Purdue basketball team capped an impressive showing in the 2022 Phil Knight Legacy tournament with a dominant 75-56 victory over No. 8 Duke on Sunday in the championship game at the Moda Center.
Junior center Zach Edey recorded his fifth double-double of the season, leading all scorers with 21 points to go along with 12 rebounds. Freshman guard Fletcher Loyer came alive in the second half, sinking four 3-pointers and finishing with 18 points.
The Boilermakers opened the game by turning the ball over five times in the first four minutes of play and found themselves trailing by as many as seven points. But after settling into the game and finding a rhythm, Purdue orchestrated a commanding 23-4 run that included a stretch of 11 straight points, giving the team a 30-18 lead in the first half before the Blue Devils answered back.
The strength of the Boilermakers throughout the Phil Knight Legacy invitational was strong defensive play combined with frequent opportunities at the free-throw line. Duke was called for 11 fouls in the opening period, which resulted in Purdue knocking down 13-of-14 foul shots.
Freshman forward Kyle Filipowski was the go-to scorer early on for the Blue Devils, who looked to climb out of an early hole. The 7-footer notched 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting in the first half, including a pair of 3-pointers. Junior guard Jeremy Roach also reached double figures before the break.
Purdue attempted just three shots from the 3-point line before the second half, but all of them fell through the bottom of the net. Junior forward Mason Gillis buried two from beyond the arc, and he had eight points in the first half.
In the early goings of the matchup, Edey seemed nearly unstoppable on the offensive end for Purdue. He led all scorers with 13 points to go along with five rebounds and didn’t the ball over, propelling the Boilermakers to a 46-35 lead heading into the locker room despite a 7-0 run by the Blue Devils before halftime.
Duke was the first team on the board in the second half, but Purdue found a second wind as Loyer made back-to-back 3-pointers to kickstart a 10-2 run that led to a 17-point lead.
The deficit prompted the Blue Devils to switch to a zone defense, and the Boilermakers went nearly four minutes without a basket after the transition. Roach and freshman guard Tyrese Proctor sparked an 8-0 Duke run that cut Purdue’s lead to single digits.
Sophomore forward Caleb Furst scored five straight for the Boilermakers in the second half, who watched their lead dwindle to as little as seven points. But the team thwarted a comeback attempt by holding the Blue Devils to 0-of-11 on shots behind the 3-point line and 23.3% from the field in the second half
Purdue mounted a 13-1 run in the final nine minutes of play to put the game away while improving to 6-0 on the season. The team will be back in action on Wednesday, Nov. 30, against Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla., as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
It will be the first true road matchup of the season for the Boilermakers. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. ET, and the game will be broadcast on either ESPN2 or ESPNU.
D.J. Fezler is a staff writer for BoilermakersCountry.com. He is from Cedar Lake, Indiana, and graduated from Indiana University in 2020. Before covering Purdue, D.J. spent three years covering Indiana University Athletics and the Big Ten for the Indiana Daily Student and Rivals.
source: CalBearsMaven
