Ace Baldwin Jr. scored 17 points with six assists and Freddie Dilione V added 14 points as Penn State opened Big Ten Conference play with an 81-70 upset victory at home against No. 8 Purdue on Thursday in University Park, Pa.
Puff Johnson scored 13 points and Nick Kern added 12 points with eight rebounds as the Nittany Lions (8-1) ended an eight-game losing streak against the Boilermakers. Zach Hicks scored 11 points.
High-scoring Penn State, which entered third in the nation with 91.3 points per game, leaned into its defense by forcing Purdue into 24 turnovers, tied for the most in 20 seasons under head coach Matt Painter.
The Nittany Lions earned a victory over a top-10 team for the first since December 2019 and are off to their best start since the 2014-15 team opened 12-1.
Trey Kaufman-Renn and Fletcher Loyer each scored 15 points and C.J. Cox added 12 for Purdue (7-2), which entered off a neutral-court victory over No. 23 Ole Miss and defeated then-No. 2 Alabama earlier this season.
The Boilermakers, two-time defending Big Ten regular-season champions, saw the Nittany Lions make 28 of their 32 free-throw attempts.
Penn State set the tone early by picking up Purdue full court and playing a half-court pressure defense that held the Boilermakers below 10 points for the first 11 minutes of the game.
The Nittany Lions used an 11-0 run in the first half to take an early 18-9 lead. Penn State went 11 of 13 from the free-throw line in the first half and held a 40-24 lead at the break.
The Nittany Lions turned 14 Boilermakers turnovers in the first half into 15 points and continued the relentless defensive pressure in the second half to open their first 20-point lead at 52-32 with 15:48 still to play.
Soon after, a jumper by Johnson started an 8-0 run from the Nittany Lions that gave them a 60-34 lead with 11:41 remaining and they weren’t threatened the rest of the way.
Baldwin got the best of a point-guard battle with Purdue’s Braden Smith, who had six points with five assists. Smith entered second in the nation with 9.1 assists per game.
–Field Level Media
