OHIO STATE 67 | PURDUE 58
A league of their own
Buckeyes clinch first outright Big Ten championship since 1985-86 season
Friday, February 24, 2006
Jim Massie
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
MIKE MUNDEN | DISPATCH Freshman Star Allen clutches the Big Ten trophy that Ohio State won by beating Purdue.
MIKE MUNDEN | DISPATCH Ohio State’s Tamarah Riley pushes her way past Purdue’s Carol Duncan.
The game ended last night with Candace Dark 2 feet above the Value City Arena floor and wrapped in the arms of Jessica Davenport.
Dark, a lightly used Ohio State senior guard, and Davenport, the team’s All-American center, were lost in the joy of the program’s first outright Big Ten championship since the 1985-86 season.
To secure the title they shared with Michigan State last season, the sixth-ranked Buckeyes outlasted perennial conference power and longtime nemesis Purdue 67-58 in an all-out, full-court defensive war.
The ferocity of the effort into the final minute by the No. 12 Boilermakers (21-5, 12-3) came as no surprise to anyone in an OSU uniform.
"I was like, ‘If we can get it to 15 seconds and we’re up by six, then I think we’ve got the game,’ " fifthyear senior guard Ashley Allen said. "Then we got a turnover with 12 seconds left and I thought we had it wrapped. It always is (a battle). It’s a Purdue-Ohio State game. There hasn’t been a blowout, I don’t think, since my true freshman year. I’m very happy right now."
The Buckeyes (24-2, 14-1) received a 20-point, 10-rebound performance from Davenport and 19 points from junior guard Brandie Hoskins. Senior forward Debbie Merrill added 13 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Even with that production, OSU had to overcome a season-long struggle at the free-throw line to put away Purdue.
Down 53-48 with 3:21 to play, the Boilermakers began fouling. The Buckeyes, whose last basket came from Davenport with 5:52 remaining, responded by hitting 13 of 18 free throws down the stretch. The defense withstood a final barrage from Purdue’s Katie Gearlds, who scored 10 of her 19 points in the final 3:59.
"I thought we played terrific defensively," OSU coach Jim Foster said. "I think we could play a little bit better at the offensive end and execute a little bit better. Except for a couple of lapses from the three-point line, I liked us. We knew where Katie Gearlds was all night. Sometimes it didn’t matter. But that’s the kind of player she is."
The Buckeyes rode Davenport in the second half. She scored six points in the first half against a physical inside defense led by Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton. Davenport had 14 points and seven rebounds after the break.
"I like the fact that Jess came back aggressive in the second half," Foster said. "Debbie Merrill stayed aggressive throughout the game and Brandie is getting better."
Whenever Purdue threatened in the second half, Davenport seemed to be in a position to do something about it.
"I was more active and more aggressive," she said. "I saw what they wanted to do in the first half. I just tried to do things differently in the second half and tried to get more rebounds."
Early in the game, the high stakes and nerves showed in the turnovers and missed shots by both teams. Allen finally got the Buckeyes untracked with a three-point field goal at the 16:07 mark that gave OSU a 7-2 lead.
Defense, though, continued to dominate for the entire game as both the Boilermakers and Buckeyes kept constant pressure on the ball. Purdue committed 13 turnovers before the break and 21 for the game but managed to stay close to OSU behind Gearlds and Wisdom-Hylton until those final two turnovers allowed the Buckeyes to exhale.
"I breathed out when the buzzer ended," Davenport said. "There’s a lot of things we can learn from this game. Right now we’re going to celebrate this championship for at least one night."
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