Illinois chases down No. 18 Purdue with late 13-1 run

Kasparas Jakucionis drilled a tie-breaking 3-pointer with 39 seconds left to highlight a late nine-point run that lifted Illinois to an 88-80 Big Ten victory over No. 18 Purdue on Friday night in the regular-season finale for both teams in Champaign, Ill.Freshman Will Riley scored 22 points and Tre White added 20 points and nine rebounds as the Fighting Illini (20-11, 12-8 Big Ten) pulled off a 13-1 run over the final two minutes.Junior guard Braden Smith nearly pulled off his first triple-double for the Boilermakers (21-10, 13-7). He played all 40 minutes and produced 18 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds. Trey Kaufman-Renn led all scorers with 29 points, but only managed six in the final 12 minutes as the Fighting Illini rallied from a 10-point deficit.Illinois jumped to a 17-10 lead with 13:47 left in the first half as Tomislav Ivisic and Riley drilled back-to-back 3-pointers. At that juncture, the Illini were 3-for-3 on 3-pointers — but they proceeded to miss their next 11 shots from beyond the arc.Meanwhile, Smith and Kaufman-Renn took over at the other end. Smith drove for consecutive layups to give the Boilermakers a 27-21 lead, and Kaufman-Renn hit three straight shots — two on feeds from Smith — to push the margin to 33-25 with 5:13 left in the half.Illinois pulled within 42-40 at the break as Riley cashed a 25-footer with less than a second on the clock to snap the host’s errant 3-point streak.

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