Mason Gillis came off the bench and scored a career-high 29 points to lead No. 1 Purdue to an 80-60 victory over Penn State on Wednesday night at West Lafayette, Ind.
The Boilermakers (22-1, 11-1 Big Ten) won their ninth in a row and swept the season series with the Nittany Lions (14-8, 5-6), who lost for the fifth time over their past eight games.
With Penn State doing a solid job of limiting national player of the year candidate Zach Edey in the paint, Purdue’s outside shooting came alive thanks to Gillis, who made a career-best nine 3-pointers in 12 tries, setting a new Mackey Arena record for triples in a game.
Purdue made a season-high 14 3-pointers as a team.
Gillis was averaging only 5.4 points entering Wednesday’s game and had never scored more than 14 points in a game in his career. According to Purdue, Gillis’ 29 points were the most by a major-conference player coming off the bench this season.
Gillis went on a personal 11-0 run — hitting three consecutive treys — after Penn State scored the first bucket of the second half. The run gave Purdue its biggest lead to that point at 46-31.
Seth Lundy led the Nittany Lions with 18 points and six rebounds while Jalen Pickett finished with 12 points, seven assists and five rebounds. Michael Henn had 11 points and five assists.
Penn State did a solid job of slowing down Edey in the first half, holding him to eight points while limiting guard Braden Smith to four points. Smith went on to finish with nine points, nine assists and five rebounds.
Edey hit a pair of free throws with 15:20 left in the second half to notch his 18th double-double of the season. He finished with 18 points and 13 rebounds as Purdue outrebounded Penn State 38-19.
The Nittany Lions cut the deficit to 64-48 with 8:41 left after Pickett made back-to-back 3-pointers. But Edey established dominance in the paint and put Purdue back ahead by 20 with six consecutive points.
–Field Level Media
