The Purdue Boilermakers will host the Wisconsin Badgers this Saturday. It has happened five times during Matt Painter’s 11 seasons.
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Here’s the full bracket, from the Big Ten Conference.
This is still a good team, however, with an outstanding player – Jarrod Uthoff – experience and a heck of a good coach in Fran McCaffery.
Nigel Hayes led all scorers with 30 points in the game, adding eight rebounds and three assists.
Due to tiebreaking procedures, the Badgers will be the No. 6 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, marking the first time they will play on Thursday in the conference tournament since 2000.
Hammons added 16 points and Vince Edwards had 11 for the Boilermakers (24-7, 12-6), who forced a four-way tie for third place in the Big Ten with Maryland, Iowa and Wisconsin. The Badgers showed why Sunday, opening the game with their inside-out approach in sync.
Freshman power forward Caleb Swanigan scored a career-high 27 points and sophomore point guard P.J. Thompson also set a career best with 22, leading Purdue to a 91-80 victory Sunday night. The Purdue Boilermakers have won 2 out of their last 3 games. The Boilermakers got into the bonus early, making a comeback attempt that much more hard for the Badgers. Purdue is winning 13-7 on the boards, though it’s also shooting 63 percent and giving the Badgers few opportunities.
“They were helping inside on our big men, and when the shots were open, I just took them”, Thompson said, “When their point guard went to double, I got open looks and just knocked them down”. Two of them came during a 10-0 run as Purdue converted an eight-point deficit into a 34-31 lead.
Wisconsin has an average field goal percentage of 43.4%.
Hayes scored nine consecutive points for UW during one stretch, including a pair of free throws that cut the Boilermakers’ lead to 76-69 with 4:46 remaining.
“We knew we were playing a good team that is playing very well right now”, Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said. “We didn’t finish around the rim, and at the other end, it was really tough for us when Thompson made all of those 3s”.
The Minnesota Golden Gophers will play a first round game as the 13th seeded team in the tournament. When it comes to field goals, rebounds, or three-pointers, neither team was able to hold the advantage in all three of these categories over their past five meetings against one another. The visitors took three-point shots on each of their first three trips down the court (hitting two), and the two the teams were on their way to combining for 15 made threes in 20 minutes.
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As you can see, the Michigan Wolverines will begin their postseason play when they kick off the action on Thursday at noon on Big Ten Network against Northwestern. The Badgers came to Purdue 11-1 since then…
