No. 8 Purdue (8-2) came back against Maryland (8-2) Sunday, hitting a roll and building momentum as the second half wore on.

Junior point guard Braden Smith led the Boilers with 24 points and 10 assists.

Player stats are below, with ratings to follow:

Many of his 15 points came late, but Heide excelled in this one at showing up with sporadic “wow,” plays. Many came on rebounds or loose balls he looked supremely unlikely to reel in, but did. He had a handful of dunks.

He’s a freak, and Purdue is lucky to have him in the role it does.

There was that one shot, in transition, about five minutes left to play.

Smith dribbled in transition, could have kicked to Heide on the wing, but instead went toward the right elbow. Then, seemingly in an instant, he decided to pull up from about 25 feet. And it rattled home.

Well, then there was that other one, with three minutes left. Maryland drops, Smith fires. Bang.

He got going today in a big way. When he reached 22 points and 10 assists, he became the first since Troy Lewis in 1988 to do so.

Loyer was hot when everyone else was cold. He helped keep crowd in it. After his second make of the second half, he went to 57% from 3 on the season in 37 attempts. Unconscious.

He also put up a career-high seven rebounds.

The two-man game he was able to execute with Braden Smith for stretches of the latter second half was well-nigh unstoppable. That was when the game really opened up, both in the lane and on the scoreboard.

Colvin did well navigating screens and bothering Ja’k Gillespie. The Terrapin guard scored 18 points, 8 in the second half, on 6-of-13 shooting. Most of those were 3s.

The sophomore’s highlights mainly consisted of three ( by my count) high-flying offensive rebounds in the first half, two of which he converted to put-backs. Those were important momentum plays in a game where momentum was gold.

The grade would be worse if he had played more minutes, but as it stood, Cox didn’t have much opportunity to impact the game.

Where is the CJ Cox who single-handedly brought Purdue back against No. 2 Alabama? Today, the freshman showed some serious jitters: He fumbled with the ball off a pass in the first half and double-dribbled, and nearly had the ball poked in traffic in a half-court set minutes later.

In the second half, he travelled on a pull-up, mid-range attempt. That’s his shot.

Very small impact in his 10 minutes. He just didn’t touch the ball much. Defensively, he got cracks at Gillespie and didn’t pop.

Furst filled in for Kaufman-Renn in the first half as the latter went through some foul trouble. He did good work against Derik Queen in his five minutes.

The senior somehow missed an open dunk at the end of the first half, but redeemed himself with some points later, including a strong, and-one finish midway through the second half.

Burgess was the first off the bench, and perhaps some freshman jitters got into him, too. He missed an open layup on a nice Smith feed in his first minute on the court. That one wasn’t because he was tired.

He only played four minutes in all, as Caleb Furst was the preferred backup big in this one.

A lot is anchored to Game Score, a metric invented by John Hollinger which (quite imperfectly) estimates a player’s box score contributions. It’s just something to anchor the grades to, and it’s readily available.

During the game, I focus most of my attention on watching defensive reps, box-outs, offensive movement/involvement, and non-assist passing. I’ll add all the off-ball value to these grades that my eyes can catch.

Further, these are role dependent – my grades answer a question that goes something like, “How well did a player take advantage of the opportunities they were given?”

Late game heroics earn bonus points, and the opposite is true for important errors. Oh, and I hate missed free throws.