Purdue makes itself at home to upset Wisconsin

Freshman Robbie Hummel scored a career-best 21 points on eight-for-12 shooting and No. 24 Purdue upset No. 8 Wisconsin, 72-67, Saturday night at Madison, Wis., to extend the Boilermakers’ winning streak to nine.

Purdue, 19-5 overall, 10-1 Big Ten Conference, last beat a team ranked in the top 10 on the road on March 1, 1998, at No. 10 Michigan State. The Boilermakers had last beaten the Badgers (19-4, 9-2) in Madison on Feb. 7, 1996, a span of eight games.

Purdue, off to its best start in the conference in 20 years, now controls its fate in the Big Ten in an effort to win its first regular-season title since 1996.

The Boilermakers are a game up on Wisconsin, which had its 16-game conference winning streak at home end.

The Badgers, trailing by as many as 15 in the second half, cut the lead to 68-65 with 1:22 to play on two free throws by Jason Bohannon.

Wisconsin fouled JaJuan Johnson on the other end, and he made one of two free throws before stripping Wisconsin’s Trevon Hughes. The ball squirted to Purdue’s Keaton Grant, who scored to give the Boilermakers a 71-65 lead with 57 seconds left.

Wisconsin, which made 30 of 33 free throws but only three of 18 from three-point range, is 104-7 at home since Bo Ryan took over as coach, and 51-3 in Big Ten play, with the previous two losses coming against Illinois.

No. 22 Notre Dame 86, No. 16 Marquette 83 -- The Irish (18-4, 8-2 Big East) didn’t make a basket during the final six minutes at South Bend, Ind., missing all six attempts.

But they were 10 of 10 from the free-throw line during that stretch to hold off the Golden Eagles (16-6, 6-5), who fell to 1-4 on the road in conference play and 3-4 since beating the Irish on Jan. 12. Luke Harangody, who was 10 of 13 from the free-throw line to finish with 18 points, made four free throws during the final 26 seconds.

No. 23 Vanderbilt 66, South Carolina 65 -- Jermaine Beal drove the length of the court and made a short fadeaway jumper with 0.6 of a second left to give the Commodores the victory at Columbia, S.C.

South Carolina’s defense got no pressure on Beal until he got to within a few feet of the basket as he raced down the court for his only basket for the Commodores (20-4, 5-4 Southeastern Conference).

Beal’s winning points came after Devan Downey’s driving reverse layup with six seconds to go gave the Gamecocks (11-11, 3-5) the lead.