COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio State stunned No. 2 Purdue on Sunday in the Buckeyes' interim coach's debut, winning 73-69 a day after the NCAA Tournament selection committee picked the Boilermakers as the top seed to be No. 1 overall. seed during March Madness.
Bruce Thornton scored 22 points and Jamison Battle added 19 to help Ohio State (15-11, 5-10 Big Ten) pull off the upset in Jake Diebler's first game at the helm.
Chris Holtmann was fired Wednesday after several disappointing seasons. The beleaguered Buckeyes had lost nine of their last 11 games.
Diebler became the second head coach since 1996-97 to beat an AP top 10 team in his Division I coaching debut, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
Purdue (23-3, 12-3) had been favored by 7½ points, according to ESPN BET. Ohio State fans stormed the field after the final buzzer.
“What a resilient group,” said Diebler, who was overcome with emotion as he greeted his family on the packed court. “We have some fantastic young people who have come together at the top these last few days in a way that I don't know if any of us fully anticipated they could arrive in a short period of time.”
Ohio State played with energy from the start, led 35-30 at halftime and was up by 12 six minutes into the second half.
With the Boilermakers closing down the stretch, it seemed like only a matter of time until Zach Edey took over the game, but that didn't happen.
Lance Jones hit a three-pointer for Purdue to tie the score at 65 with 1:39 left. But Battle hit a jumper and then, with 34 seconds left, he hit a pair of free throws to increase Ohio State's lead to 69-65.
An easy dunk by Edey cut the lead to two with 16 seconds left. The Boilermakers then fouled Thornton, who went to the line and made both free throws to nearly seal the game.
Edey finished with 22 points and 13 rebounds, the Purdue star's 58th double-double.
But the Boilermakers turned the ball over 14 times, leading to 22 Ohio State points.
“We just have to take care of the ball,” Edey said. “We outrebounded them. We got more possessions that way, but we can't let them get to transition. We have to play a half-court game… It's hard to win the game when a team scores 22 points in transition.”
Purdue coach Matt Painter was impressed with the Buckeyes' performance after enduring an emotional week that saw the firing of his beloved coach.
“That's what you don't know: Can you get them down and keep them down, and then they disappear, which obviously didn't happen? They win the game,” he said. “So you know, where's their fight? What's it going to be? I think they answered that. Their fight was great.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
