Yale men’s basketball owned the paint, but Purdue owned the perimeter, as the No. 13 Boilermakers defeated Yale 92-84 at a sold-out Mackey Arena Monday night.
Yale (1-2) outscored Purdue (3-0) 50-24 in the paint and 11-5 on offensive rebounds.
Bulldogs coach James Jones called his team’s showing a “tough gritty performance, a few costly possessions from a great road win.”
The Boilermakers were 11-for-23 from long range.
Yale lost the game but found a potential star in sophomore center Samson Aletan. The 6-foot-10 Dallas native had a career-high 14 points and added seven rebounds.
Aletan had only taken two shots this season.
Jones had a plan early on to attack Purdue’s 7-foot-2, inexperienced sophomore center Will Berg and went to Aletan early and often.
Aletan scored seven of Yale’s first 11 points.
Purdue opened up a 22-11 lead on 11 points from preseason Big Ten Player Of The Year Braden Smith.
Smith had 22 points, going 4-for-8 from long distance.
A trey by senior guard John Poulakidas cut it to 30-24. Smith hit a triple at the buzzer to give Purdue a 45-34 lead.
Poulakidas posted a game-high 23 points on 9-for-19 shooting, including 15 second-half points.
Purdue went up 56-45 on a Trey Kaufman-Renn layup, but Yale countered on a 5-0 run, capped off by a bucket by junior forward Casey Simmons off of a nifty senior forward Jack Molloy feed.
The Boilermakers ran to an 88-79 lead, but Poulakidas answered with a long-range three with 32 seconds remaining.
A senior guard Yassine Gharram uncontested layup made it 90-84 with 23 seconds left, and Yale would get no closer.
Junior forward Nick Townsend and senior guard Bez Mbeng each added 12 points for the visitors.
Kaufman-Renn, a junior forward, notched 17 points.
Yale didn’t help itself at the charity stripe, going just 10-for-19.
Yale is next in action on Wednesday at home at 7 p.m. against Division III Emerson.
Good article. Promising that Eli’s could hang with too 15 team.