Purdue defeats Michigan to win Big Ten Tournament title

CHICAGO (WISH) — Purdue took down Michigan, 80-72, to win the Big Ten Tournament championship.

The game was tied at 38 at halftime, but Purdue started the second half on a 7-0 run and never looked back.

“We needed this for confidence, more than anything,” Purdue head coach Matt Painter said. “The people that came into Mackey Arena and beat us, it wasn’t offensive issues from us. We were very good offensively in those losses, but we weren’t good enough defensively. You can’t forget about that, and you have to defend. There’s games where the ball’s not going to go in and you got to grind it out and guard the ball and play good team defense and rebound the basketball. I just think the improvements we made there really helped us and helped us build a lot of confidence.”

Oscar Cluff led Purdue with 21 points. Trey Kaufman-Renn added 20 points for the Boilermakers.

Braden Smith had 14 points, 11 assists and 0 turnovers. Smith is one assist away from tying the all-time NCAA assist record.

The Boilermakers, the No. 7 seed in the tournament, won four games in four days to cut down the nets. On top of that, they took down the top-seeded Wolverines in the championship game.

“Obviously for us, there’s no surprise,” Smith said. “We’ve been in positions where we’ve been No. 1 in this tournament and we’ve won it before and we’ve lost. I think for us it doesn’t matter what number...