Purdue knew who Xavier's most dangerous players were. Knowing them and stopping them were completely different things.
Tu Holloway scored 21 points, including three consecutive 3-pointers in the last two minutes, and No. 11 Xavier roared back from a 19-point second-half deficit to pull out a 66-63 win over Purdue on Saturday.
Holloway personally capped the Musketeers' comeback with six straight points that gave Xavier a 61-60 lead with 1:06 left. It was Xavier's first lead since 2-0 in the first two minutes.
After Purdue's Robbie Hummel tied the game with a free throw with 55.8 seconds left, Holloway calmly sank his third straight 3-pointer with 40 seconds left to give the Musketeers a 64-61 lead and two free throws with 21.7 seconds left for the final margin.
Holloway's antics didn't surprise Boilermakers' coach Matt Painter, who watched his team go the last 6:26 without a field goal.
''When the snowball starts rolling in the wrong direction, everything goes wrong,'' Painter said. ''We wanted to get the ball out of Lyons' and Holloway's hands as much as possible. Two of (Holloway's) 3-pointers were big-time shots, but I thought we did a good job. I think there were a lot of positives. It was unfortunate that we lost it, but Xavier won it.''
Painter wasn't able to have Hummel, his All-America candidate, on the court for the last 22 seconds as the Boilermakers scrambled to tie the game with a 3-pointer. The senior forward, who's had two surgical procedures on his right knee, overcame bouts with leg cramps to score a team-high 17 points for the Boilermakers (7-2), who played their first game of the season on an opponent's home court. The cramps kept Hummel on the bench in the last 22 seconds as Purdue scrambled to sink a game-tying 3-pointer.
''He's fine,'' Painter said. ''He just had cramps.''
Purdue (7-2) missed a chance at its first win over a ranked opponent since beating the No. 2 Ohio State, 76-63, last Feb. 20.
''I told the guys if we wanted to beat Xavier, we needed to be 15 points better than them,'' Painter said. ''Obviously, we weren't even close. If we wanted to beat that team, we had to put ourselves into position to win. We put ourselves into position. We just didn't pull it out.''
Mark Lyons added 14 points and Kenny Frease and Andre Walker each finished with 10 as the Musketeers (6-0) overcame their highest turnover total since the 2008-2009 season to remain undefeated.
Xavier (6-0) committed 22 turnovers but still pulled out its second consecutive comeback win. The Musketeers trailed by 10 points midway through the second before pulling out an 82-70 overtime win Monday at Vanderbilt.
Hummel scored 17 points to lead the Boilermakers (7-2), who played their first game of the season on an opponent's home court.
The Musketeers committed 18 turnovers in the first half, two more than their previous high this season, while falling behind by 16 points in the first half. Lyons, who went into the game leading Xavier with an average of 18.0 points per game and Holloway each scored four. Holloway took just two shots and didn't sink his only field goal until a layup with 33 seconds left before halftime.
The points were the fewest for the Musketeers in a first half since they scored 20 in their 66-55 loss to Marquette in the second round of last season's NCAA tournament.
Lewis Jackson scored 10 points and Hummel added seven, including a tip-in at the buzzer that gave Purdue a 33-22 halftime lead.
