Staff and wire reports
Purdue’s men’s basketball team has won 16 straight games, is ranked No. 3 in the nation by The Associated Press and sits alone atop the Big Ten Conference standings.
But the Boilermakers are facing what might be a tricky game.
Purdue (20-2, 9-0 Big Ten) will take on rival Indiana (12-9, 5-4) at 3:30 p.m. Sunday (WXIN-Channel 59) at Assembly Hall in Bloomington.
The Boilermakers are coming off a 92-88 home win Thursday night against No. 25 Michigan, a game that was close throughout. A 9-0 run midway through the second half gave Purdue just enough cushion to tie the school record for most consecutive wins.
Vincent Edwards scored a career-high 30 points for the Boilermakers. Isaac Haas, Purdue’s 7-foot-2 center, added 17 points and some key defensive stops.
“I knew going into the game that Michigan wasn’t going to try to double that much because we have too many good shooters, and I figured they’d take their chances going one-on-one in the paint,” Haas said after celebrating the milestone with Edwards near midcourt. “I capitalized on it a lot today.”
For the first time in 30 years and the fourth time overall, the Boilermakers have won 16 in a row.
The defending Big Ten champs extended their home-court winning streak to 20 and their winning streak against conference foes to 11.
They are 9-0 in league play for the first time in the NCAA Tournament era and completed their first regular-season sweep of the Wolverines (17-6, 6-4) in 10 years.
The Hoosiers, meanwhile, had won four of five before losing 73-71 at Illinois on Wednesday night.
Illinois had opened the season with eight straight Big Ten losses. It tied the worst conference start in school history and included seven losses by 10 points or less.
Indiana lost despite hitting its first nine shots of the game and leading by six points at halftime.
The Hoosiers still had a chance to send the game into overtime, but on their final possession, Devonte Green turned it over while trying to pass to Juwan Morgan.
“They really forced the action in the second half and took control of the game,” coach Archie Miller said.
Morgan led Indiana with 25 points, his seventh 20-point game of the season, and Zach McRoberts scored a season-high 10 points.
Robert Johnson came in as Indiana’s second-leading scorer at 13.9 points but was held to just eight. He is two points away from moving up to No. 30 on the Indiana all-time scoring list. He now has scored 1,264 points.
