WEST LAFAYETTE—Purdue’s players finally figured out what Matt Painter wanted all season. Toughness. Defense. Big plays late in the game. The Boilermakers did it all Wednesday night, slowing the tempo with a strong defensive effort, finding enough scorers and rallying twice in the second half — once to take the lead and finally to hold off frantically-charging Illinois — in a 68-61 upset of the No. 11 Illini.

“It means a lot,” Terone Johnson said after scoring a career-high 25 points. “It’s kind of like coach said in the locker room, `We just went out there and did it, so why couldn’t we have been doing it before?”‘

Good question. Purdue (7-6, 1-0 Big Ten) came into the conference opener with the worst record in the league and a schedule that had them facing Illinois at home, visiting No. 18 Michigan State and hosting No. 8 Ohio State by Tuesday. They left Mackey Arena with their third straight win, a record over .500 for the first time all season and an eighth consecutive victory over Illinois dating to the second of three meetings during 2008-09. Yes, the Boilermakers needed the win and they did it with their trademark grit, too. The 6-foot-2 Johnson played big in the paint, making 9 of 18 shots, grabbing nine rebounds and finishing with four assists.Senior D.J. Byrd who struggled for most of the first 30 minutes, made three of his four 3-pointers during a key 16-3 second-half run that flipped the game. He also grabbed the rebound off an errant free throw, called timeout with 21 seconds left from his knees before falling out of bounds, then grabbed the inbound pass and completed a three-point play to make it a two-possession game. Byrd finished with 15 points, two assists and a beaming smile across his face.

“Terone hit me on the wing and it was in rhythm so I just caught it and shot it. The next one I caught it and shot it, and then I kind of got lucky on that one dropped in,” Byrd said. “You’ve just got to keep shooting it like the next one’s going in.”

For Illinois, it was a rough start to conference play. The Illini (13-2, 0-1) have now lost two of their last three games and their eighth straight Big Ten road game since winning at Northwestern almost exactly one year ago. The losing streak against Purdue the school’s longest against a league foe since it lost nine straight to Purdue from 1996 to 2000, and the Boilermakers are the only Big Ten team this year’s seniors have not beaten.