Boilers tough -- for a half

Illini's Brown scores 14 in 2nd half after Purdue leads No. 1 team early.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- The life was back in a pulsating Mackey Arena late Saturday afternoon. Purdue had given its fans reason to dream big thoughts.

But then Dee Brown and his Illinois teammates squashed that fantasy as the Purdue season continued its free-fall.

The top-ranked Illini trailed at the half for the first time this season, but the ultra-fast Brown scored all 14 of his points after the break and Illinois eventually rolled to a 68-59 victory before a sellout crowd of 14,123 fans.

"They do everything well," Purdue's Matt Kiefer said. "People who don't score, they set screens constantly. Then their shooters got going in the second half and they took off from there."

You could chalk this up as a moral victory for the Boilers (4-8), who are off to their worst start since the 1965-66 season. The Illini (16-0) entered Saturday's game with an average margin of victory was 20.5 points.

But it was hard to look at it that way after Purdue led by as many as nine points in the first half. The Boilers shot 68 percent from the field during the first 15 minutes, and Brandon McKnight's 3-pointer made the score 34-25 with 4:59 left.

"We've been working hard the last two days on cutting and moving and setting screens," said Kiefer, who scored 13 of his 17 points in the first half. "We watched a lot of tape on Illinois. If you keep moving, they break down sometimes."

Purdue led 39-33 at halftime. The Boilers outrebounded Illinois 18-10 in the first half. They also held the Illini's stellar guard trio of Brown, Deron Williams and Luther Head to 3-for-12 shooting and 10 points. Brown had not even taken a shot.

"In the first half, we gave no separation to their guys when they went around screens," Purdue coach Gene Keady said. "We stayed right on their tails and did a good job of guarding them."

That changed. Purdue got a dunk from Carl Landry on its first possession of the second half, but Illinois then went on a 21-4 run. Head hit two 3s during the run, and Brown capped it with two 3s in a row to give Illinois a 56-45 lead with 9:21 left.

"I think they forgot about me," Brown said. "I was just out there playing defense and getting loose balls. I had no shots in the first half and I was trying to play my role.

"In the second half, I think they played me a little soft and I was able to explode off screens."

It didn't help Purdue when Kiefer -- who was playing his best game of the season -- went to the bench after picking up his third foul three minutes into the half.

But it may not have made much difference against a team as deep and talented as Illinois.

"We said not to panic," Illinois coach Bruce Weber said. "We knew beforehand, if we wore them down, they did not have great depth. We could keep coming at them and they would start missing those shots. I think our defense and our rebounding kind of took over."

Purdue never got closer than seven points after Illinois' decisive run.

Head, Brown and Williams ended up having a pretty typical day at the office. They finished with 15, 14 and six points, respectively, and Keady called them the best set of guards in the nation.