Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs Purdue Boilermakers Box Score on Dec 15, 2018

John Mooney scored 21 points, D.J. Harvey added 19 points and Rex Pflueger finished with seven points and 10 assists as Notre Dame knocked off Purdue 88-80 in Indianapolis in Saturday's first game of the Crossroads Classic, which pairs Indiana schools.

Carsen Edwards scored 27 points to lead Purdue (6-5), which trimmed a double-digit lead to seven at the half and hung around most of the way.

Back-to-back three-point plays by Mooney and Nate Laszewski extended the Irish lead to 15 at 66-51 with 7:37 to play, but the Boilermakers again narrowed the deficit, this time to 71-64 on a jumper by Trevion Williams, who scored all 10 of his points in the second half.

Mooney, however, countered with a 3-pointer, his third in three tries, to push the lead back to 10. Mooney, who nearly doubled his scoring average of 11.6 points per game, added six rebounds, and Harvey chipped in with five.

Ryan Cline scored 15 points for Purdue, and Evan Boudreaux added nine points and a game-high seven rebounds.

Notre Dame (7-3) shot 52 percent from the floor while Purdue was at 42.9 percent. The Irish had a bigger edge from behind the arc, 52.4 percent to 31 percent.

Notre Dame went on a tear in the first half, going on a 14-2 run over about five minutes to pull away from a 16-16 tie to lead 30-18 with 8:14 left.

The Irish kept the lead in double digits most of the rest of the half, until their shooting cooled late and the Boilermakers cut the deficit to seven at the break on a 3-pointer from Grady Eifert and two free throws from Edwards.

Edwards led all scorers in the first with 12 points, although he made only 3 of 10 shots in the process. He hit his first two 3-pointers inside the first three minutes of the game, but missed his last four before halftime.

Edwards, who was averaging 25.5 points per game, shot 8-of-22 from the floor and 4-of-10 from behind the arc.

Harvey led Notre Dame with seven points in the first half.

Pflueger left the game with an apparent left knee injury with about five minutes to play.

--Field Level Media