Poor shooting in first half leads to Purdue loss - Purdue Exponent

The Boilermakers shot just 8-31 (25.8 percent) from the field in the first half on its way to a 67-62 loss at home to Wisconsin.

Heading into Thursday night’s game, Purdue was shooting 45.3 percent from the field for the season and 48.6 percent in Big Ten play.

“There’s no question; sometimes the ball doesn’t go in,” head coach Matt Painter said. “But when you’re behind, like we are, and you get open looks and you get to the free throw line and you go 4-15 in the paint in the first half, as a coach what else do you want? You want layups and you want free throws, and then you don’t make them. It’s pretty frustrating.”

Purdue struggled the entire night shooting the ball, highlighted by Robbie Hummel’s season-worst 5-17 from the field.

“I thought we played hard the rest of the game,” Hummel said. “We made a good effort to try to come back.”

Hummel wasn’t the only one who didn’t shoot well, as Terone Johnson shot just 4-13.

Despite Purdue shooting better in the second half (43.3 percent from the field), the poor shooting from the first half derailed the Boilermakers, while the Badgers shot a steady 45 percent from the three-point range for the game.

“We just have to be more consistent,” Painter said. “I like our guys, but (Wisconsin) did a better job to start the game, and they did a better job really the entire game.”

Hummel identified the team’s need to find better overall shooting consistency as a major area of improvement moving forward.

“I thought for the time that we’ve all been here we’ve been pretty consistent, gotten off to pretty good starts,” Hummel said. “This year we’ve had some games where we’ve gotten out to good starts and played bad in the second half, and had some games where we’ve played poorly in the first half and a lot better in the second. We really need to start putting together a complete game.”

Posted in Sports, Basketball on Friday, January 13, 2012 10:00 am. Updated: 10:05 am.