Denzel Valentine reached another, but he hopes not the last, milepost in his illustrious basketball career really without ever straying very far from where it all began.
His Michigan State Spartans had just watched their 13-point second-half lead get ground down to one, 62-61, by Purdue in a span of 13 minutes of Sunday’s Big Ten Tournament championship game, and momentum was on the verge of shifting completely in favor of the Boilermakers, whose vocal fans filled a majority of the seats in Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
But after rebounding a missed Purdue layup with 2:04 remaining, Valentine drove the ball down the court and worked his way open for a good look just inside the 3-point line.