Men's basketball beats No. 3 Purdue thanks to Bridges' game-winning shot
- by Grant Boone
- in Sports
- — Feb 12, 2018
His 14th-ranked Buckeyes followed up a dramatic midweek road win over Purdue by thumping Iowa at Value City Arena on Saturday, getting balanced scoring and limiting the Hawkeyes' big guns on the way to an 82-64 victory that puts Ohio State in control of the Big Ten race. Miles Bridges was a one-man crew dribbling to his right and firing off a deep three to break the tie and defeat Purdue 68-65.
Bridges finished with a team-high 20 points on 9-of-14 shooting. However, over a month into conference play, the Buckeyes continue to prove that they can win the Big Ten conference. I thought in the first half we had a good balance of making some threes and going inside to him so we wanted to keep going into them, and since they were staying one-on-one, just keep it simple.
Michigan State's Miles Bridges led the Spartans with 20 points.
Purdue basketball again put itself in position to win a pivotal Big Ten Conference matchup Saturday.
While Cassius Winston filled up the stat sheet with 10 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds, Bridges was the star for Michigan State, always seeming to come through in clutch moments.
Kentucky (17-8, 6-6 Southeastern Conference) led 30-26 at halftime, but Texas A&M (17-8, 6-6) made 11 of its first 16 shots in the second half - including all four of their 3-point attempts - to take a 14-point lead.
That 13-1 record is tops in the Big Ten. They totaled eight points on 2 of 12 shooting Saturday.
Lindy Waters sank the go-ahead 3-pointer with 17 seconds left and the Cowboys staged a late comeback to stun the Mountaineers.
Xavier 72, Creighton 71 - In Omaha, Neb., Quentin Goodin made two free throws with three-tenths of a second left, allowing the No. 5 Musketeers (23-3, 11-2 Big East) to hold off the Bluejays (18-7, 8-5). For Michigan State, it was their second match play win in three years, having won in 2016. "I did a lot of things to lead this team".
Before anointing the Hawkeyes a Final Four contender, it is worth noting that Iowa is 12-14 overall and 3-10 in the Big Ten.
Baylor 80, No. 10 Kansas 64: Manu Lecomte scored eight straight points for Baylor (15-10, 5-7) after Big 12 co-leader Kansas (19-6, 8-4) had pulled within a basket, and the senior guard finished with 18 overall in the Bears' upset victory.
In the game of the night in college basketball, Purdue traveled to Michigan St. hoping to bounce back from Wednesday's loss to Ohio State.
Joel Berry's 16 points and Cameron Johnson's 13 points also boosted the Tar Heels (19-7, 8-5 ACC), who were coming off an emotional home victory against No. 9 Duke just 40 hours earlier. The Huskies hit 47 of their 66 shots.
Young had 22 points and 11 rebounds for the Sooners (16-8, 6-6). This is the first time Ohio State has had back-to-back double-digit scoring efforts from its reserves in almost a month. Michigan State and Purdue will need help to catch them.
Cook was held to just eight points, his lowest total since January 7, and the Hawkeyes also got just 11 points from Jordan Bohannon.
Baylor led for the final 26 minutes and didn't flinch when Kansas made a charge to get within a basket in the second half.
Did he make a mistake in returning to school?
The Hurricanes led 70-63 with 6:17 left- their biggest lead of the game - before missing their last nine shots and turning the ball over five times.
With both Jackson and Ward benched with three fouls each with 12:41 to play, the Spartans trailed 53-51 after Matt McQuaid hit a 3-pointer from the left wing.