West Lafayette, IN -- (Sports Network) - Kevin Coble scored 16 points and grabbed eight rebounds, and the Northwestern Wildcats shocked the 19th-ranked Purdue Boilermakers, 64-61, at Mackey Arena.

Using a 24-5 burst in the second half, the Wildcats went from trailing by 10 to leading by nine with 5 1/2 minutes left in the game. Coble had six points during the spurt for Northwestern (17-11, 8-9 Big Ten), which has won three straight.

"I was just really happy for our guys," Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody said. "All we do is play close games. Any extra possessions we can get, we'll take. Coming into tonight, I thought we would have some opportunities on the offensive boards. It really paid off."

Michael Thompson and Craig Moore each had 12 points for the Wildcats, who are jockeying for position in next week's Big Ten Tournament. With the win, Northwestern is now tied with Michigan for eighth place in the conference and is only a half-game behind Minnesota for seventh. The Gophers play later against Wisconsin.

E'Twaun Moore and Keaton Grant led Purdue (22-8, 11-6) with 14 points apiece, while JaJuan Johnson had 11 points, as the Boilermakers failed in a chance to move closer to the second seed in the conference tournament. Purdue will now need to beat Michigan State in its season finale and have Illinois lose to Penn State Thursday to lock up the No. 2 position.

"I thought Northwestern really played well down the stretch," said Purdue head coach Matt Painter. "We got good shots for the first five or six minutes (of the second half), and then we started forcing things. Northwestern played harder than us at Evanston and harder than us tonight. We are fortunate to be 1-1 against them."

Purdue held a 42-32 lead early in the second thanks to a Lewis Jackson layup 3 1/2 minutes in, but a 24-5 Northwestern burst put the Wildcats in control with 5:33 to play.

Coble made a layup with nine minutes left that tied the game at 47, part of 14 straight Wildcat points. Thompson capped the extensive rally with a three- pointer, and Northwestern held a surprising 56-47 advantage. The Wildcats had several crucial offensive rebounds that allowed them to run down the clock in their Princeton-style offense.

The Boilermakers went over eight minutes without a point, finally pulling to within seven on Moore's short-range basket with 3:09 to play. Grant added a three at the two-minute mark to make it 56-52.

Coble came back down at the other end and drained a jumper as the shot clock was winding down, putting the visitors ahead by six with 1 1/2 minutes to play.

Three combined free throws from Robbie Hummel and Chris Kramer left Purdue down, 58-55, with a minute left.

Thompson missed the front end of a 1-and-1 for the Wildcats with 48 seconds left, and Kramer made 1-of-2 from the line with 32.4 seconds on the clock.

Some nifty passing by Northwestern led to an easy layup by Luka Mirkovic with 28.6 seconds left, and, after Purdue missed several shots, Mirkovic committed a loose-ball foul, but Hummel missed a 1-and-1 with 14.6 seconds to go.

Trailing, 60-56, Purdue began to foul, and Northwestern made its free throws down the stretch to seal the victory.

Neither team led by more than three for the first 13-plus minutes of the game, but a 15-4 burst by Purdue put the hosts ahead by seven, 32-24.

Johnson began the run with a pair of free throws, and Moore's trey capped the burst with just under four minutes to play.

Northwestern closed to 35-28 at halftime.

Game Notes:

Purdue had won five of six coming in...The teams split the season series, 1-1...Northwestern snapped a five-game losing streak to Purdue but still trails the all-time series, 118-43...Hummel, battling a back injury all season, was limited to just eight points.