Purdue forward Trey Kaufman-Renn (4) is fouled as he shoots between Rutgers guard Ace Bailey (4) and guard Jeremiah Williams (25) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in West Lafayette, Ind., Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)AP
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – While Purdue poured in 18 threes during its 100-71 rout of Rutgers Tuesday night in Mackey Arena, it was the rebounding margin that was even more glaring: 40-26 in favor of the Boilermakers.
“When they did miss them, they tracked down rebounds and got second and third opportunities,” said Rutgers associate coach Brandin Knight. “When we did get stops, we didn’t complete the stop by securing the rebound.”
Over and over again, Purdue beat Rutgers to the glass or knocked the ball out of the Scarlet Knights' hands to get additional scoring chances.
“Those plays really hurt us,” Knight said.
For the first time this season, head coach Steve Pikiell was not made available to speak about the lopsided loss. Outside the locker room, Knight acknowledged that after a defeat to Michigan on a buzzer beater last week, the Scarlet Knights failed to match the energy of Purdue on the Boilermakers' Senior Night. Rutgers (14-16; 7-12) will conclude its disappointing regular season at home against Minnesota on Sunday afternoon before heading to the Big 10 Tournament, which starts next Wednesday.
“This one is one which you kind of just throw away,” Knight said. “You chalk it up to Senior Night and great players playing great on their side: all of their good players played their tails off tonight. Hopefully we’ll take that and learn from the things we did or didn’t do tonight and let’s put a night like tonight on Minnesota.”
Rutgers freshman Dylan Harper was plagued by foul trouble in the first half, and the second half wasn’t much better as he was limited to 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field and 3-of-5 from three. Pikiell tried to jolt his team with lineup changes and by employing multiple defensive looks, but nothing worked against the Boilermakers, who shot 50% from beyond the arc for the game. Freshman Ace Bailey had 12 points and 2 rebounds. He managed to hit just one 1 of 6 attempts from three.
“Couple things didn’t go our way,” Knight said. “In the second half, if we had been able to sustain not giving up the barrage of threes then I think we would have been fine.”
Rutgers trailed by nine points at halftime despite giving up 11 threes. In the second half, Purdue shot 7 of 19 from deep.
“We did a better job in the second half guarding the three, but we didn’t rebound,” Knight said.
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Kevin Armstrong may be reached at karmstrong@njadvancemedia.com.