Purdue paid $90,000 for its home opener and led by 12 at halftime. Rakim Chaney's career night and Justus McNair's final shot turned the guarantee game into Valparaiso's first win over a Big Ten team since 2004.
This was supposed to be the safest night on Purdue's schedule. The Boilermakers paid Valparaiso $90,000 to come to Mackey Arena for the home opener, the kind of guarantee game that exists to be won by halftime and forgotten by Sunday. A crowd of 14,876 watched it turn into the game of the young season instead — and watched the visitors celebrate at center court.
Valparaiso beat No. 24 Purdue 83-80 in double overtime on Friday night, a win built on a career night from sophomore guard Rakim Chaney and finished by junior guard Justus McNair's 3-pointer at the final buzzer. Purdue, ranked 24th in the Coaches Poll, falls to 0-2 four days after dropping its opener to Gonzaga in Las Vegas. Valparaiso is 2-0, and the check still cashes the same.
Twelve up at the half
For a half, the guarantee game behaved. Purdue led 32-20 at the break and pushed the margin to 15 behind its size inside, and Valparaiso went more than eight minutes without a point early on. The one crack in the script came right before halftime, when Chaney buried a deep 3 that trimmed the lead and gave the Beacons something to carry into the locker room.
The second half flipped it entirely. Valparaiso outscored Purdue 38-26 after halftime, shooting 61 percent, with Chaney living in the lane. He tied the game with 5:37 remaining and hit the 3 that put Valparaiso in front with 4:49 left. Purdue steadied just enough to drag it to overtime, 58-58, but the home team never looked comfortable again.
Chaney would not let it end
The first overtime ended on the play of the night — until the next one. Purdue, up three, fouled Chaney on purpose with four seconds left, the percentage play to keep a tying 3 from ever going up. Chaney missed the one-and-one. Then he ripped down his own miss, dribbled out to the corner and buried the 3 at the buzzer anyway. Seventy-70, and Mackey Arena had a second overtime it never wanted.
Chaney finished with a career-high 35 points on 14-of-22 shooting, plus eight rebounds and six assists. He scored 27 of them before the overtimes even started, and every time Purdue built a cushion in the second half, he took it apart — off the bounce, in transition, and once, impossibly, off his own missed free throw.
One more buzzer
Chaney's and-one jumper early in the second overtime put Valparaiso up 73-72, and on Purdue's next possession he picked up his fifth foul — gone with 4:02 left, the best player on the floor done for the night. The Beacons didn't blink. McNair drove for an and-one layup and a 77-74 lead with 2:54 left. Daniel Jacobsen dunked Purdue back in front 78-77 with 37 seconds to go. JT Pettigrew answered with a 3 for 80-78 at 20.8 seconds. Jacobsen's hook shot tied it 80-80 with 4.4 seconds left.
Which left McNair. He took the inbound, came down the right side and rose over Caden Pierce at the horn — good. Valparaiso 83, Purdue 80, and the Beacons poured off the bench into a pile on the Mackey floor while 14,876 people tried to process what a $90,000 guarantee game had just bought them.
What the win ends
Valparaiso arrived in West Lafayette 0-44 all-time in true road games against top-25 teams, according to the program's own game notes. That streak is over. So is a longer one: this is Valparaiso's first win over a Big Ten team since December 28, 2004, when it beat Penn State — ending 19 straight losses to Big Ten opponents. Against Purdue specifically, Valparaiso had not won on the court since 1965; the only other win in the series came by forfeit in 1995.
Purdue's night was not without a bright spot: Jacobsen, the 7-foot-4 junior center, scored a career-high 28 points on 9-of-13 shooting and kept the Boilermakers alive at both ends of both overtimes. But Purdue shot 37.5 percent for the game, got 13 points from C.J. Cox and 11 from Gicarri Harris, and now owns an 0-2 record with a home-court loss to a team picked fifth in the Missouri Valley. The guarantee game is the cruelest line on a schedule — you pay for the win, and sometimes you pay for the loss, too.
Sources · 5 sources
- IndyStar — Valparaiso stuns Purdue in double overtime (game report and live blog) (November 6, 2026)
- IndyStar — 3 things that stood out as Purdue was upset by Valparaiso (November 6, 2026)
- IndyStar — Here's how much Purdue paid Valparaiso only to lose in double overtime (November 6, 2026)
- Journal & Courier — Valparaiso buzzer beater stuns Purdue in Mackey Arena thriller (November 6, 2026)
- Valparaiso Athletics — Pregame notes — streak and series records (November 3, 2026)
Final score, period scoring, play-by-play and box score cross-checked against the Sportradar final feed and the ESPN game summary for event 401926131. Purdue's No. 24 ranking is its USA Today Coaches Poll position; the Boilermakers were receiving votes in the AP poll.
Every possession from Mackey — the full box score, play-by-play and both overtime finishes — is in the Game Center for Valparaiso at Purdue, and the night's full college slate is on the college sports hub.
