Purdue beats Villanova to win Tip-Off tourney
No. 6 Purdue 80, No. 5 Villanova 74: Purdue’s biggest men came up large in a huge early season game.
Zach Edey scored 21 points and Purdue (5-0) overcame an 11-point secondhalf deficit to beat Villanova (3-2) on Sunday and win the Hall of Fame TipOff Tournament in Uncasville, Conn.
The 7-foot-4 center hit nine of his 12 shots from the floor and grabbed six rebounds. The team’s other post, 6-10 Trevion Williams, added nine points and four boards for the Boilermakers, who dominated underneath, outscoring the Wildcats 38-18 in the paint and outrebounding them 38-26.
“Trevion and Zach is a really good 1-2 punch and I thought offensively they had an above average game,” coach Matt Painter said. “Between them they had 30 and 10, and I thought Trevion’s defense when we switched five ways he got down in a stance and was the difference. It doesn’t show up in this box score, but it shows up with our staff.”
Caleb Furst and Isaiah Thompson each had 12 points for Purdue.
Justin Moore had 19 points, Caleb Daniels added 17 and Collin Gillespie had 14 for Villanova, which launched 34 attempts from behind the arc, making 13 of them.
The Wildcats led 33-31 at halftime, scored the first five points in the second half and were up 57-46 after a 3-pointer by Daniels.
But Purdue outscored the Wildcats 34-17 over the last nine minutes.
“This season obviously we’ve never been down before, it was something different,” Thompson said. “I think we were resilient in the second half.”
No. 17 Tennessee 89, No. 18 North Carolina 72: Freshman Zakai Zeigler scored 18 points to lead Tennessee (3-1) over North Carolina (3-2) in the consolation game of the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament in Uncasville, Conn.
Santiago Vescovi added 18 points and nine rebounds for the Vols, who bounced back from a 71-53 loss to Villanova on Saturday.
Brady Manek hit six 3-pointers and scored 24 points for the Tar Heels, who fell to Purdue in Saturday’s opening round. Armando Bacot had 16 points and 12 rebounds.
Tennessee, which went with a threeguard lineup early in the first half, led by seven points at halftime. The Vols extended that to 12 early in the second half on a run capped when Vescovi stole the ball from Dawson Garcia and laid it up on the other end.
The Volunteers would then answer whenever North Carolina made little runs.
A driving layup by Zeigler pushed the lead to 74-57 with just over 7 minutes to go and his 3-pointer a couple of minutes later off a steal by Brandon HuntleyHatfield made it 79-60, essentially putting the game out of reach.
North Carolina had won 10 of the previous 11 matchups between the programs, a series that dates to 1911. The Volunteers’ last win over the Tar Heels came in 1949.