MADISON – Purdue escaped the Kohl Center with an 84-80 overtime victory over Wisconsin on Friday night. Carsen Edwards and Ethan Happ, two All-Americans, put on a show for the audience that resulted in Wisconsin’s third loss in four games. The Badgers record now stands at 11-5 overall and 3-2 in the Big Ten.

The Badgers are usually a team that takes care of the ball. Wisconsin had 17 turnovers on Friday night, including some costly ones in overtime. Additionally, Purdue killed the Badgers on the boards with 17 offensive rebounds.

“It’s a possession war,” Purdue head coach Matt Painter said. “You gotta be able to steal possessions against Wisconsin… I thought our guys gave a big-time effort.”

In a four-point loss, the Badgers had 17 turnovers, lost on the boards, and shot 11-of-19 from the free throw line. That is the recipe for losing close ones at home.

“Defensive rebounding and turnovers,” head coach Greg Gard said. “Two things we pride ourselves on… You’re going to have a hard time when you turn it over that much and don’t clean up the glass.”

“That’s another loss on our record that we definitely beat ourselves,” Brad Davison said postgame. “We need to be our own energy from the start… This has to be a learning curve.”

In overtime, each team only had one bucket, but Purdue scored eight points from the charity stripe. The Badgers had trouble taking care of the ball with errant and lazy passes. With just a handful of seconds remaining and a chance to tie, D’Mitrik Trice had a tough take to the rim that resulted in some contact, but the point guard did not receive the call. Carsen Edwards was able to ice the game from the free throw line from there on out.

Happ had a Herculean performance with 31 points, 13 rebounds and six assists in another career game. Unfortunately, it was not enough to pull out a win.

Carsen Edwards typically does the heavy lifting for Purdue’s offense. The junior point guard put on a show all night and appeared to hit the dagger on Wisconsin from NBA range in regulation, but then Trice did the improbable. The Badgers did not have an answer for his dizzying quickness or shooting ability all night. Edwards hit his season average of 24 points per game in just 26 minutes against the Badgers.

Edwards finished with 36 points. He played 43 minutes in total and seemed gassed in overtime.

“Anything he did tonight, I’ve seen before on film,” Gard said of Edwards. “We knew we were going to have our hands full with him.”

In the first half, the Badgers faced their largest deficit of 11 points but then tore off a 16-1 run to completely flip the script of the game. Wisconsin’s defense held Purdue scoreless from the field for nearly six minutes. Offensively, Happ deserves most of the credit as he shot 90 percent from the field and tripled all of his teammate’s assists.

Wisconsin closed the half eight-of-nine and went into halftime down one point. Happ ended the first half with a stat line that would be most players career night: 18 points, seven rebounds, and three assists.

The second half was a tightly contested battle, but Brad Davison had some shining moments. The sophomore guard scored eight of the Badgers first 10 points on a tough array of jumpers. Davison ripped the ball out of 7’3″ Matt Haarms’s hands and hit a three on the next possession to tie the game. Down the stretch in regulation, Davison took a big charge on Edwards on a drive to the hoop. Davison finished with 13 points.

D’Mitrik Trice has had plenty of clutch moments this season. On Friday night, Trice added to his heroics. He had been struggling mightily, just two-of-ten from the field. However, Trice hit the two big threes in the final 30 seconds, including one off of a bank, to keep the Badgers alive and send the game into overtime.

“For us to be able to regroup… It was tough,” Painter said. “They made a couple plays. Our guys showed a lot of grit, a lot of fight… I was proud of them.”

Ryan Cline added 14 for the Boilermakers. Cline hit four field goals. All were from the three-point line. Trevion Williams, in his first start, played Happ tough and was a matchup nightmare for the much skinnier Reuvers.

Up next, the Badgers play at Maryland on January 14th at 7:30 p.m.