Harris leads Purdue to dominant win over Nebraska

Four times this season, freshman Ae’Rianna Harris has been pushed into the starting lineup.

And each time, the 6-foot-1 forward has responded in a big way. None more so than Thursday night, when Harris made her fourth career start — she was in for forward Andreona Keys, who was out with an undisclosed injury — and came through with a career-high 19 points with five rebounds and a block.

It was the catalyst to Purdue’s domination of Nebraska, an 88-45 thumping of the visitors that marked the Boilermakers’ largest Big Ten margin of victory since a 42-point win over Northwestern in 2007.

“She’s just a force inside,” senior Ashley Morrissette said. “You’ve got to be an athletic post to be able to stop her. When she’s attacking the rim, you’ve just got to get out of the way, because she’s going to leap over you and score the bucket. Or you’re going to foul her. And she has a nice 15-foot shoot too. I think she’s developing into what will be a special player.”

Nebraska didn’t have many answers. The Cornhuskers allowed Purdue (14-8 overall, 5-3 in the Big Ten) 48 points in the paint, 17 second-chance points and 12 more on the fastbreak. Plus, the Boilermakers scored 27 points off 24 Nebraska (5-16, 1-8) turnovers.

Meanwhile, Purdue didn’t have many flaws, scoring a season-high 88 points on 52.2-percent shooting with only 10 turnovers, winning on the glass, 39-24, and holding the Cornhuskers to only 35-percent shooting.

Purdue had four in double-figure scoring, with Morrissette leading with a game-high 21 points; Dominique Oden had 16 points, with six assists and five rebounds; Bridget Perry had 15 points and six boards.

But it was Harris who shined inside.

“All their post players kind of overplayed a lot of stuff, so it was kind of easy to slip (in) or get deep in the paint,” Harris said.

Harris, who came in averaging 6.3 points and 4.7 rebounds, has been solid in her four starts this season, averaging 11.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game.

“She’s seizing every opportunity and is accumulating knowledge,” Coach Sharon Versyp said. “But the players are starting to realize how athletic she is, so a lot of times they’re throwing it up to her whereas before they wouldn’t. Now, they realize how gifted she is.”

The Boilermakers jumped to a 19-9 lead in the opening 8:30, the capper being a perfectly executed fastbreak, when Morrissette found Oden, who touched a pass over to Harris for the layup. That was part of a greater 13-2 run that ended with Purdue up 24-11 at the end of the first quarter.

Morrissette scored six straight early in the second, putting Purdue up 19. The margin hit 21, and forced a Nebraska timeout at 5:02 of the second, when Dominique McBryde scored inside.

She scored four more late, including a jumper off a feed from Morrissette with two seconds left in the half, to give Purdue a 42-17 lead at the break.

The margin hit 30 points at the 1:50 mark of the third quarter, when Harris scored in the paint and 40 on Perry’s reverse layup five minutes into the fourth.

Purdue often found its offense spurred from the defense, thanks to 12 steals — Morrissette had a career-high tying six — and the 24 NU turnovers.

“Once you get the defensive part down, it definitely helps the offense,” said Morrissette, who added eight assists and five rebounds to her 21 points and six steals. “… Once we got everybody on the same page defensively, we connect better offensively. We push he ball and when we don’t have somebody, we get into our secondary (offense). It just all flows together.”

The Boilermakers have now hit the midway point of the Big Ten with a 5-3 record, and get a week off until they next game, vs. No. 3 Maryland next Thursday in Mackey Arena. It might be Purdue's last chance at a marque regular-season NCAA booster.

“I’m feeling pretty good,” Morrissette said. “We’ve had our ups and downs, but we’ve always bounced back, so I think that we’re headed into February with a lot of momentum.”

And Purdue has done so despite injury. Two players have missed most of the season with knee injuries, while Nora Kiesler was out for a month and Perry and Keys have missed single Big Ten games.

“We haven’t missed a beat even though we’ve had a plethora of injuries,” Versyp said. “We just go with it. No one panics, no one worries. Most people would be freaking out, but we just keep rolling with the punches. The kids have stepped up to another level.”

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