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Carsen Edwards scores career high as Purdue embarrasses reigning champ Villanova
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Purdue had some impressive wins on its resumé, but there were none nearly as impressive as Saturday night’s blowout win over Villanova. And a huge chunk of the credit goes to All-American guard Carsen Edwards.
The Boilermakers got a career high from Edwards, who scored 42 points on 12-of-21 shooting, as they went on to defeat the reigning champs 87-61 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Purdue advances to the Sweet Sixteen for the third-straight year.
Villanova held an early 5-4 lead, but it was the only time it owned an advantage all night. Purdue caught fire early and built a 25-12 lead. With just over five minutes remaining in the first half, the Boilermakers owned a 32-22 advantage before closing the half on an 11-2 run to make the score 43-24.
In the first half alone, Purdue had knocked down nine three-point attempts.
The second half wasn’t much different, either. The Boilers scored the first 16 points of the second half and pushed the score to 59-24. The game had been sealed by that point.
Matt Haarms also had a strong performance from Purdue, scoring 18 points on eight-of-12 shooting and grabbing nine rebounds. Ryan Cline scored 12, with all of his buckets coming from behind the three-point line. The Boilermakers finished the day making 16-of-30 shots from long range.
Villanova made just 34.5 percent of its shot attempts and got outrebounded 42-24.
Purdue now returns to the Sweet Sixteen for the third-straight year. But the Boilermakers haven’t ever reached the Elite Eight under head coach Matt Painter. They’ll await the winner of Iowa-Tennessee to see if they can break that trend.
Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB