What to Expect: Indiana at Purdue
Indiana is back on the road Friday night to play rival Purdue in primetime at Mackey Arena. The Boilermakers are 16-5 and a contender for the Big Ten title at 8-2.
Friday’s game will tip at 8 p.m. ET on FOX:
Indiana’s 20-game Big Ten schedule has reached its most difficult juncture. The Hoosiers begin a six-game stretch Friday night in West Lafayette against teams in the upper half of the league standings.
Up first is Purdue, which hasn’t skipped a beat in the post-Zach Edey era. The Boilermakers are in the thick of the Big Ten title race and have a pair of potential All-Big Ten first-team players in Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn. After a stunning 73-70 loss at Mackey Arena to Ohio State on Jan. 21, Purdue rebounded with a 27-point dismantling of Michigan three days later.
The Boilermakers will be working on a full week off when Friday’s game tips against the Hoosiers.
MEET THE BOILERMAKERS
Now in his 20th season as Purdue’s head coach, Matt Painter has built a program that contends in the Big Ten almost every season. Last spring, Painter broke through in the NCAA tournament with a national championship game appearance. He has also won five Big Ten regular-season titles and two conference tournament championships.
The departure of a two-time national player of the year would set most programs back. Not Purdue. Mixing a solid returning nucleus with savvy high school recruiting has Painter and the Boilermakers right back in the mix for another league crown.
Kaufman-Renn has taken a significant leap in his redshirt junior season after a complementary role on last season’s national runner-up. The Silver Creek product has the highest usage rate in the Big Ten at the halfway point of the conference schedule. His 18.1 points per game lead the team and he’s shooting 59.5 percent from the field. He leads Purdue in rebounding at 6.5 per game and is the sixth-best offensive rebounder in the conference. Kaufman-Renn has attempted a team-high 121 free throws and he’s converting at a 59.5 percent clip from the stripe.
The preseason pick for Big Ten player of the year, Smith is firmly in the mix to earn that honor. There’s no better distributor in college basketball than Smith, who has the best assist rate in the country at 46.8 percent. Smith’s assist-to-turnover ratio is 3.22-to-1 and he averages 8.9 assists per game. He’s also shooting 38.8 percent on 3s and is averaging 15.4 points per game, second on the roster. He’s also an excellent rebounder for a guard, as his 4.8 rebounds per game rank second on the team.
Purdue’s third double-figure scorer is junior guard Fletcher Loyer. One of the nation’s premier shooters, Loyer makes 46.7 percent of his triples and is 44 percent from distance in Big Ten games. His 14 points per game are third on the roster. With defenses keyed on Kaufman-Renn and Smith, Loyer does a great job moving away from the ball to get open. He doesn’t need much time to get his shot off and has one of the purest strokes in the country.
The rest of the Purdue roster consists of role players who fill in the production around Kaufman-Renn, Smith and Loyer.
Upperclassmen Caleb Furst has been terrific in conference play. The 6-foot-10 Fort Wayne native is shooting 69 percent on 2s in conference games and is among the top 15 offensive rebounders in the league. Freshman Raleigh Burgess has looked the part of a young big man with a bright future in West Lafayette. Burgess, a 6-foot-11 center from Cincinnati, is shooting 56.5 percent on 2s and 42.9 percent on 3s in limited minutes. He’s coming off a strong six-point, three-rebound effort in 14 minutes against Michigan last Friday.
Freshman CJ Cox, another under-the-radar recruiting find by the Purdue coaching staff, has started the last eight games. A 6-foot-3 guard from Lexington, Massachusetts, Cox is 20-for-48 (41.7 percent) on 3s on the season. He’s making 72.7 percent of his 2s in Big Ten games. He’s also an excellent defender.
Sophomores Myles Colvin and Camden Heide, along with freshman Gicarri Harris, the son of program great Glenn Robinson, have Purdue fans excited about the future guard and wing rotation.
Colvin was viewed by many as a potential breakout candidate in the preseason. He’s struggled with perimeter shooting – 31.4 percent – but is a productive finisher. Colvin is making 58.8 percent of his 2s and had a big-time 20-point effort earlier in the season against Ole Miss. Heide makes winning plays, is athletic, brings a ton of energy and is efficient. He’s making nearly 70 percent of his 2s and averages 4.9 points in 19.9 minutes per game. Harris shoots just 36.4 percent from the field but is 9-for-10 from the free-throw line over Purdue’s last three games.
TEMPO-FREE PREVIEW
(We’ve updated the tempo-free chart to include Big Ten games only. Stats below are updated through Tuesday’s games.)
Through Tuesday’s Big Ten games, Purdue ranks in the top three in the league in defensive turnover and rebounding percentages.
Boilermaker opponents are turning it over on 22.8 percent of possessions and their league foes are grabbing only 27 percent of their missed shots.
Purdue ranks third in the league in 3-point shooting percentage – 36.7 – and first in 2-point field goal percentage – 58. The Boilermakers take care of the ball, play at a deliberate pace and have a point guard in Smith who can pick apart defenses in the half court.
WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO
The KenPom projection favors Purdue by 12, with a 13 percent chance of an IU victory. The Bart Torvik projection favors the Boilermakers by 14, with a 10 percent chance of a Hoosier upset.
This is the most difficult game remaining on the Indiana schedule and Mackey Arena is arguably the best home environment in the conference. With the Hoosiers dropping four of their last five, the program has little momentum heading into this rivalry matchup.
Purdue will be looking to humiliate the Hoosiers, similar to last season’s 20-point defeat in West Lafayette. Will Indiana compete or succumb to another lopsided road defeat?
Filed to: Purdue Boilermakers