Purdue senior guard Willie Deane probably put it best.
“This is what the [NCAA] Tournament is all about,” Deane said. “Guys stepping up who have been having to play their role all year. [Melvin Buckley] is really capable of giving us a big game like tonight every night out.”
Buckley, a 6-foot-7 freshman guard, shot 7-of-11 from the field and 5-of-6 from the 3-point line and scored 20 points to lead ninth-seeded Purdue to an 80-56 victory over eighth-seed LSU (21-11) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Friday in Birmingham, Ala.
Buckley’s previous career high was 11 points in a Jan. 4 game against Montana, and he only scored in double figures twice before Friday.
“He is very capable of hitting two or three threes in a row,” said Purdue head coach Gene Keady. “But I did not think he would get 20 [points].”
The shooting parade started early for Buckley, and it lasted the entire game.
After coming in for the first time with 12 minutes remaining in the first half, Buckley knocked down his first trey four seconds later. He finished the first half with eight points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field.
With the score tied at 32 at the half, Buckley led the Boilermakers on an 18-4 run the first 4:58 of the second half and shifted the momentum to Purdue and sapped energy from the Tigers. The freshman scored six points during the run with two 3-pointers.
“The first five minutes [of the second half] made the difference in the game,” said LSU senior forward Ronald Dupree. “They just started knocking down shots. I think we did a decent job on their main scorers, but their main guy [Willie Deane] started creating and kicking, and Buckley was really the key for their team’s success today. He just knocked down some threes.”
Purdue’s offense was not the only thing that gave the Tigers fits.
The Boilermakers limited LSU to 33.3 percent shooting from the field and forced the Tigers into shooting 6-for-26 from the 3-point line, which equated to 23.1 percent from long range.
Dupree was held to eight points on 3-of-12 shooting from the field. Junior forward Jaime Lloreda led LSU with 21 points.
“This was one of our better games of the year because we shut down some pretty good guys,” said Purdue senior guard Kenneth Lowe, the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. “We were pretty angry today because they didn’t shake our hands in the beginning of the game, and that kind of made us mad because that never happened to us before.
“Everybody picked us to lose. Nobody expected us to win except for the Purdue family.”