Cauldron on the buzzer! Purdue holds on to win 80-78 against the Runnin’ Rebels

Phew.

Did everyone else work off their Thanksgiving leftovers? Just me? My toddlers played for two hours straight, I couldn’t believe I was able to watch a holiday tournament game from start to finish without interruption, and what a game it was.

Purdue rallied early against Ole Miss, leading by 17. Then, with about eight minutes left in the first half, the Rebels gave the go-ahead, and they simply couldn’t miss for the rest of the first half and the first ten minutes of the second Half time.

They made their first six three-pointers in the second half. With 7:57 seconds left, Ole Miss had a seven-point lead, and to be honest, I had some doubts at that moment.

But I should know better.

From there, Purdue went on a 17-8 run, winning the game with a go-ahead shot by Myles Colvin with just half a second left on the clock before a missed lob from Ole Miss secured the win for Purdue.

Purdue has its usual scoring trio, but tonight Myles Colvin joined in the fun. Myles had a career night, scoring 20 points with half a second left, including the aforementioned go-ahead shot.

Myles started the game strong with that steal and dunk, and he finished it just as strong, outboxing his defender and scoring the game-winning basket.

Maybe I noticed something small when Myles sprinted down the court to get back on defense immediately after his game-winning basket. He doesn’t celebrate, doesn’t brag, just gets back to work, and My Friends is the epitome of basketball IQ and culture that Coach Painter instilled in his basketball team.

While Myles stole the show with the winner, the regular Big Three did their thing, combining for 56 of Purdue’s 80 total points.

Yes, then add Myles’ 20 and that group of four scored all but four points for the Boilermakers tonight.

Trey Kaufman-Renn continued his rise as Purdue’s next great post player, scoring 25 and 13 to move into the top 10 Kenpom National Player of the Year rankings.

Braden Smith started the first half on fire but was held scoreless in the second half until he missed all of his free throws and layups. He scored 14 of his 18 points in the first half and also added 11 assists and 6 rebounds tonight.

Fletcher scored 13 points but at times felt like Ole Miss’s athletic wings were hindering him at the rim, but when he found space he made it count, hitting four of seven shots and three of five shots from behind the arc. He’s about 60% from deep on the season.

The bench didn’t do much tonight, just two points from Caleb Furst, but he did grab four rebounds in his 12 minutes of playing time. Gicarri Harris led the bench with 15 minutes but had zeros throughout the penalty area, and CJ Cox played just five minutes.

Ole Miss made an astonishing 36 attempts from deep and hit 15 of them, but this is a team that ranked 138th nationally and came into the game from deep while their post players dominated all year.

Coach Painter and his staff lost all of the rim protection they had on the roster when true freshman Daniel Jacobsen went down with a broken leg. They decided to pack the box and let Ole Miss live and die in threes, and it almost backfired.

But since TKR is so important to this team on both ends of the court and as a rebounder, the goal must be to protect him at all costs and ensure foul trouble doesn’t arise.

While it can be stressful watching threes rain down on the team, it’s even more stressful when TKR is in foul trouble.

This was a tough win against a well-coached team. Coach Painter has had problems with Chris Beard in recent seasons, but tonight he found a way.

Purdue will be sidelined until Thursday when they travel to face Penn State, which is currently 6-1.