Late surge by Boilermakers comes up short against Buckeyes

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - The Ohio State Buckeyes have owned the Purdue Boilermakers of late and the trend continued Tuesday night at Mackey Arena as the Buckeyes knocked off the Boilermakers 74-64.

Coming into play tonight, Ohio State had won 24 of its last 28 games against Purdue when ranked in the Top 25. Deshaun Thomas scored 22 points to lead No. 15 Ohio State to a victory.

"We didn't obviously want Deshaun Thomas to get off to the start that he had," said Purdue Head Coach Matt Painter.

Coming off a loss on Saturday at Illinois, an frustrated group of Buckeyes bounced back in a big way from start to finish. They took a 10-point halftime lead despite losing point guard Aaron Craft for all but 4:19 of the first half because of two early fouls.

For Purdue, (7-8, 1-2) they have now lost two straight games to Top 20 teams since upsetting No. 11 Illinois last week. The Boilermakers were led by the Johnson brothers, Terone, had 18 points, and Ronnie, had 11 points, six rebounds and seven assists.

Purdue would have a chance late in the game to pull within four, but an ill-advised shot by freshman Ronnie Johnson with :24 seconds still on shot clock was the final straw for the old gold and black. The Buckeyes would then add a long jumper from Sam Thompson with 1:41 to go and that sealed the victory as the Buckeyes wouldn’t give up another point.

Ohio State also enjoyed a 38-32 rebounding advantage over the Boilermakers.

"Obviously, the boards were a big difference," said Boilermaker senior guard/forward D.J. Byrd. "They had seven or eight offensive rebounds in the first half and that's where a lot of their points came from."