COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Ohio State coach Jim O'Brien called it a "classic Big Ten game." Others might have painted it in considerably less flattering terms.

In a rough-and-tumble battle that saw players hitting the deck on a regular basis, Ohio State (No. 10 ESPN/USA Today, No. 8 AP) got six points from Michael Redd in a late 13-2 run to get by Purdue 68-59 Saturday night.

	Ohio State's Will Dudley keeps the ball away from Purdue's Greg McQuay.

"Every possession was like a war," said Scoonie Penn, who led Ohio State (14-3, 5-1 Big Ten) with 19 points.

With the Buckeyes on top 48-46 with 8:41 left, Redd, who finished with 14 points, hit a shot from the lane. After Penn hit a foul shot, Redd scored inside and then hit a fastbreak layup off an alley-oop from Penn.

Penn then added a layup of his own before George Reese and Ken Johnson scored on rebound follows to put Ohio State ahead 61-48. The lead never dropped below seven again.

"We were determined to buckle down in the second half and we finally made some shots," said Redd, who had hit only 3-of-12 shots from the field before making three in a row.

"It's conceivable that he could go 0-for-15 and we'd still try to run something for him to win the game for us," O'Brien said. "When you have good players, you ride your good players. You can't get away from your good players. Michael and Scoonie will continue to be the focus of our offense and we'll try to get them as many shots as we can."

The win was the sixth in a row for Ohio State, which has won 10 of its last 11.

Play was stopped for 10 minutes in the second half while the officiating crew watched a video tape of the previous play.

Just after Penn released a 3-pointer, a whistle away from the ball sent Brian Brown to the line. Brown hit both free throws to give Ohio State a 48-42 lead with 9:49 left.

After Purdue (13-7, 4-3) inbounded and went through a sequence of its offense, Carson Cunningham was fouled. But before he could shoot the free throws, the officials knelt around a courtside monitor for several minutes.

A Value City Arena capacity crowd of 19,100 booed and Keady and O'Brien paced the sidelines with exasperated expressions on their faces.

The officials decided that Reese, not Brown, should have shot the foul shots at the other end. Brown's points were taken off the scoreboard and Reese was sent to the line -- 28 seconds having run off the clock since the earlier foul. After Reese made both, Cunningham then took his shots before play resumed.

"I'll have to see that on tape to really be sure," Purdue coach Gene Keady said. "A lot of times I think, 'That was a really bad call.' Probably about 80 percent of the time that I've thought that over the course of my 42 years in coaching, the referee was right. I'm not going to say he was wrong on that thing, but it was weird."

"It was just a wash, with a different shooter," O'Brien said.

Johnson, the nation's leading shot blocker, scored 10 points and had 10 rebounds to go with seven blocks. Reese added 10 points.

Cunningham matched his season high with 19 points, with Brian Cardinal and Greg McQuay each scoring 11. Cardinal also had 11 rebounds.

"We just could not get over the hump," Keady said.

Jaraan Cornell, Purdue's leading scorer with 15.1 points a game, made his only field goal with 1:25 left and finished with two points.

A year ago, Ohio State beat the Boilermakers 72-43 -- their most lopsided victory in the series in 38 years. The latest meeting in Columbus was considerably different.

"We beat a good team," Redd said. "I don't want anyone to listen to other people's expectations. We just have to play the best that we can."

Purdue shot 38.2 percent from the field, marking the fifth game in a row an Ohio State opponent has failed to top 40 percent.