It was Christmas in West Lafayette, and while the ground looked dusted with last night’s bit of snow, Mackey Arena was playing host to a Big Ten basketball game.
A Purdue team that dominated in portions and led throughout had to hold off a feisty Terrapin comeback late and filled their stockings with a Big Ten Victory, 73-70 behind a couple freshman guards.
Brandon Newman was frankly the best player on the court for a lot of this game. The guard from Valparaiso was an efficient assassin dropping his 17 points. It was a true freshman guard, Jaden Ivey, that first held off Maryland’s second-half run to get back in a game that Purdue led for nearly the full 40 minutes.