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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Texas' defense spent most of Saturday night harassing Purdue's scorers.
Eventually, all that work paid off. The Longhorns forced three straight turnovers late in the game and took advantage of the miscues to score nine straight points, leaving town with a 70-66 upset over the No. 23 Boilermakers.
"The key for us was just hanging in there on defense even though they were bombing 3s in the first half," Texas coach Shaka Smart said. "That's a big no-no for us and our defense to give up 3s. So for them to hit those first five were huge. But I thought our guys hung in there and adjusted.""
It was a monumental moment for the reigning NIT champions.
The Longhorns (2-0) won their seventh straight, snapped the nation's fifth-longest home-court winning streak at 18 and became the first non-conference foe to win at Purdue since No. 3 Villanova on Nov. 13, 2016. And they did it after Purdue went on a 7-0 run to take a 62-57 lead with 3:14 to go.
Matt Coleman III scored 22 points and Gerald Liddell added 14 points and eight rebounds, both career bests, to lead Texas.
Smart was more impressed, though, with Texas' ability to buckle down and grind out a victory even when all almost seemed lost.
"For our guys to come in here and withstand their runs, stay together and continue fighting a lot of mistakes, I think it says that we can be a really good team," Smart said. "We've got a long way to go."
Purdue was led by Sasha Stefanovic, who had 14 points, and Eric Hunter Jr. and Jahaad Proctor, who each had 12.
But the problem: A brutal sequence in which the Boilermakers couldn't do anything right.
When Aaron Wheeler fumbled the ball out of bounds, Liddell answered with a long jumper. When Matt Haarms was called for an offensive foul with 2:07 left, Jericho Sims responded with a dunk to make it 62-61. And when Hunter lost the ball off his knee, Jase Febres made the go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:25 to go.
The Longhorns never trailed again, closing it out at the free-throw line.
"Sometimes we get complacent, we got pretty complacent in the game after we got over the hump a few times and didn't seal the deal," Proctor said. "We had possessions down the stretch. We were up five with three minutes left, we just didn't finish."
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- Purdue fell to Texas 70-66 in front of a sellout crowd of 14,804 at Mackey Arena on Saturday night … the loss snapped Purdue's 18-game homecourt winning streak and its 20-game non-conference winning streak … Purdue is now 64-5 at home since the start of the 2015-16 season.
- All five meetings with Texas have been decided by 10 points or fewer, with four of them coming by four points or less.
- Purdue is 1-1 for the first time since the 2016-17 season … the Boilermakers lost to Villanova 79-76 in their second game of the year that season.
- Sasha Stefanovic tied a career high with 14 points.
- Jahaad Proctor scored 12 points, his 18th straight double-figure scoring game dating to last year.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Texas' defense spent most of Saturday night harassing Purdue's scorers.
Eventually, all that work paid off. The Longhorns forced three straight turnovers late in the game and took advantage of the miscues to score nine straight points, leaving town with a 70-66 upset over the No. 23 Boilermakers.
"The key for us was just hanging in there on defense even though they were bombing 3s in the first half," Texas coach Shaka Smart said. "That's a big no-no for us and our defense to give up 3s. So for them to hit those first five were huge. But I thought our guys hung in there and adjusted.""
It was a monumental moment for the reigning NIT champions.
The Longhorns (2-0) won their seventh straight, snapped the nation's fifth-longest home-court winning streak at 18 and became the first non-conference foe to win at Purdue since No. 3 Villanova on Nov. 13, 2016. And they did it after Purdue went on a 7-0 run to take a 62-57 lead with 3:14 to go.
Matt Coleman III scored 22 points and Gerald Liddell added 14 points and eight rebounds, both career bests, to lead Texas.
Smart was more impressed, though, with Texas' ability to buckle down and grind out a victory even when all almost seemed lost.
"For our guys to come in here and withstand their runs, stay together and continue fighting a lot of mistakes, I think it says that we can be a really good team," Smart said. "We've got a long way to go."
Purdue was led by Sasha Stefanovic, who had 14 points, and Eric Hunter Jr. and Jahaad Proctor, who each had 12.
But the problem: A brutal sequence in which the Boilermakers couldn't do anything right.
When Aaron Wheeler fumbled the ball out of bounds, Liddell answered with a long jumper. When Matt Haarms was called for an offensive foul with 2:07 left, Jericho Sims responded with a dunk to make it 62-61. And when Hunter lost the ball off his knee, Jase Febres made the go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:25 to go.
The Longhorns never trailed again, closing it out at the free-throw line.
"Sometimes we get complacent, we got pretty complacent in the game after we got over the hump a few times and didn't seal the deal," Proctor said. "We had possessions down the stretch. We were up five with three minutes left, we just didn't finish."