Minnesota humbles Purdue, rolling to 69-42 victory
INDIANAPOLIS - When Tubby Smith throws superlatives around, he means it.
Minnesota's coach won a national championship at Kentucky and has 450 career victories, yet no half of basketball he has coached in 18 years could top what his Golden Gophers did to Purdue on Saturday.
Minnesota held the No. 6 Boilermakers to the worst first half in Purdue's record books and rolled to a 69-42 victory in the Big Ten tournament semifinals.
The Gophers will meet No. 5 Ohio State for the championship today (2:30 p.m., Channel 2). The Buckeyes defeated Illinois 88-81 in double overtime Saturday.
Minnesota led 37-11 at the break and by as many as 34 points in the second half.
"I thought it was a very impressive and dominating performance," Smith said. "It's as good a half as I think I've been a part of as a coach."
Purdue coach Matt Painter often says basketball is a game of runs. By the time his team made one, it was digging its way out of a 28-point hole early in the second half. It was the fewest points by Purdue in a half since the school started keeping track in 1950. Only a late layup by Patrick Bade allowed the Boilermakers (27-5) to avoid the worst defeat ever in a Big Ten tournament game.
"With everything on the line, I thought it was going to be a great college basketball game, and obviously it wasn't," Painter said. "The game of basketball will humble you. Today, we were obviously humbled."
Ralph Sampson III scored 13 points for the sixth-seeded Golden Gophers (21-12), who reached the final for the first time. Colton Iverson scored 11 points and Devoe Joseph added 10 as Minnesota won its fourth straight and seventh of nine.
Minnesota beat No. 11 Michigan State in the quarterfinals, and the Golden Gophers don't see why they can't knock off another ranked team.
"I feel we can compete with any team in the country and I feel we can compete with any team in the Big Ten," Sampson said.
"We've proven it in this tournament right now."
Purdue beat Minnesota twice in the regular season. The Boilermakers had won 13 of 14 and avenged their only loss during that stretch Friday against Northwestern.
They ran into a confident Minnesota team that Painter believes should be in the NCAAs. Experts had Minnesota needing to win some games in the conference tourney to get in.
"Hopefully that victory got Minnesota into the NCAA Tournament," Painter said. "They've got a great team and I think they're going to do a great job in the NCAA Tournament."
The Boilermakers entered the game talking about possibly earning a No. 1 seed.
"Basically, none of that is in our hands," Purdue guard Chris Kramer said. "Everything with seeding and where we're going to go is in the selection committee's hands. Whatever they put us, whatever seed we have, we just have to take that, and then come out and lay it on the line."
JaJuan Johnson scored 17 points and D.J. Byrd added 11 for Purdue.