INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The Rutgers women's basketball team is advancing to its first-ever Big Ten Tournament semifinal appearance after securing a 64-49 victory over No. 11 Purdue on Friday night at Bankers Life Arena.
The third-seeded Scarlet Knights improved to 22-8 overall and will matchup with second-seeded Iowa in the second semifinal on Saturday. Big Ten regular season champion and top seed Maryland will face off against fourth-seeded Michigan in the tournament's other semifinal.
Purdue, who reached the quarterfinals after an upset win over sixth-seeded Nebraska, dropped to 19-15 overall.
Rutgers was led by redshirt senior forward Stasha Carey with 17 points and redshirt sophomore guard Arella Guirantes with 15 points. Senior center Victoria Harris hauled in a career-high 14 rebounds.
Purdue was led by Tamara Farquhar's double-double of 12 points and 11 rebounds. Karissa McLaughlin had 11 and Ae'Rianna Harris was just shy of a double-double with 10 points and nine rebounds.
FIRST QUARTER
After five lead changes, the Scarlet Knights took control with an 18-15 advantage at the end of the first ten minutes of play.
While the Boilermakers took their largest lead at 15-11 with 1:24 left in the quarter, Rutgers closed with a 7-0 run, including five-straight points from the hands of Guirantes to flip the lead.
SECOND QUARTER
After netting the first points of the second quarter, the Boilermakers entered a drought hitting only one of their next 10 attempts as Rutgers used a 9-2 run to extend its lead to 29-19 with 2:09 to go.
Purdue cut its deficit with five unanswered to close the half, but Rutgers took a 31-24 advantage into the locker room.
THIRD QUARTER
Purdue opened second half play on a 7-2 run including a 3-pointer by Dominique Oden prompting the Scarlet Knights to call time with 7:57 on the clock and leading 33-31.
The Boilermakers had five chances to tie the game, but were unable to covert. The Scarlet Knights, however, found momentum with seven unanswered over a minute span to go up 40-31 with 5:04 left.
Back-to-back buckets for Purdue's Harris cut the Rutgers lead to four at 41-37 with 3:18 to go. From there, however, both squads had trouble converting for the next two minutes.
The Boilermakers used a driving layup by Farquhar and two shots at the line from Kayana Traylor to pull within one, 42-41, in the waning seconds.
Noga Peleg Pelc, however, dropped in a shot from long range at the buzzer for the Scarlet Knights to reach the final quarter up, 45-41.
FOURTH QUARTER
Rutgers put away eight unanswered and Purdue went 0-of-9 from the field to start the final stanza. The Boilermakers didn't hit their first field goal of quarter until the 4:08 mark and by then RU had outscored the Boilermakers, 14-3, to take a 59-44 advantage.
Purdue never pulled closer than 12 the rest of the way.
UP NEXT
The Scarlet Knights meet Iowa at 7:30 p.m. in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals on BTN with Lisa Byington, Christy Winters Scott and Vera Jones on the call. Coverage will also be available on the Rutgers Radio Network with Ralph Bednarczyk.
KNIGHT NOTES
- Rutgers reaches the 22-win mark for the first time since 2014-15 when the Scarlet Knights went 23-10 overall. That season, the Scarlet Knights went 1-1 in the Big Ten Tournament and 1-1 in the NCAA Tournament.
- The Scarlet Knights improved its record to 4-4 in the Big Ten Tournament and 1-3 in quarterfinal appearances. Rutgers also improved to 2-0 against Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament.
- Victoria Harris logged a career-high 14 rebounds surpassed her previous high of 11 set in contests at Ohio State on 2/8/18 and versus Maryland on 2/11/18.
- Purdue entered the Big Ten Tournament averaging 64.0 points per game and was held to 49 points and its third lowest scoring game of the year. Only Connecticut (40) and Minnesota (45) have held the Boilermakers to fewer points this season.
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