Another Big Ten game, another overtime win for No. 12 Purdue. Courtney Moses scored 24 points, and Sam Ostarello had 22 points and 19 rebounds Monday night to help the Boilermakers beat Ohio State 82-75 in triple overtime.
Purdue (14-2, 3-0) has won all of its conference games in overtime. The Boilermakers won the first two, 67-66 at Illinois and 69-66 at Nebraska, but needed three extra periods this time to get past an Ohio State team playing without Tayler Hill, the conference’s preseason player of the year and leading scorer.
“We can persevere through anything. It’s unreal,” Ostarello said. “It shows how much confidence we have in everybody.”
Moses led a rally in the second overtime. With Ohio State leading 68-62 with less than 2 minutes to play, Moses and Ostarello scored to get Purdue within a basket, and Moses scored with 5 seconds to play to force the third extra period.
“We’re put in these situations all the time in practice,” Moses said of the Boilermakers’ success in overtime. “We make things happen in overtime. We’re used to it,” said KK Houser, who had eight points and 10 assists for Purdue.
In the third overtime, Drey Mingo, who finished with 17 points, scored to put Purdue ahead for good at 72-70 and after the teams traded baskets, Dee Dee Williams made a 3-pointer to make it 77-72.
That allowed Purdue to escape after not playing for nine days since the Nebraska win.
“We were a little out of sync. On offense we were pretty stale,” said Purdue coach Sharon Versyp of her team’s offense. “For us it came down to defense.”
The Boilermakers are off to their best start since beginning the 2006-07 season at 14-2.
The Buckeyes (10-7, 0-4) are off to their worst Big Ten start, but showed they’ll still be a team to be reckoned with the rest of the way. They almost pulled out a win without Hill, who was out with an illness along with reserve Maleeka Kynard and starter Amber Stokes, who is out another 3 weeks with a knee injury. Hill is averaging 21.3 points this season, the best of any Big Ten player.
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