No. 1 Boilermakers Battle Iowa Tonight In Mackey; Look To Close In On League-Leading 25th Big Ten Title
Even though Purdue suffered a five-point loss Saturday at Indiana, the Boilermakers are in the driver’s seat to capture their league-leading 25th Big Ten championship.
With just seven regular-season Big Ten games remaining, counting the 7 p.m. tilt against 15-8 Iowa tonight in sold out Mackey Arena (a game that will be televised on ESPN2), Purdue appears to have a stranglehold on the conference race.
Purdue is 11-2 in the Big Ten and has a three-game lead in the loss column over six teams who have five league losses each.
The Boilermakers have three road games remaining – against Northwestern (Sunday), Maryland and Wisconsin.
After tonight, Purdue will have three home games left – Ohio State, IU and Illinois.
Coach Matt Painter’s club will take to Keady Court tonight with a sparkling 22-2 overall record and in the eyes of most are still the best team college basketball has to offer despite what transpired in Bloomington.
For a fourth consecutive week, Purdue remained ranked No. 1 in the polls and stayed put as the top overall No. 1 seed in Joe Lunardi’s latest ESPN NCAA Tournament bracket.
The Boilermakers just finished a grueling stretch of games where they played 11 contests in 33 days. Purdue went 9-2 in that stretch.
Now, the schedule opens up for the Boilermakers and they will have more time to prep and rest in the remaining weeks leading up to the Big Ten Tournament, which will be held March 8-12 in Chicago’s United Center.
If Purdue is the No. 1 seed in the conference tourney, it would get a double bye and open play at noon ET on Friday March 10 against the winner of the No. 8 vs. No. 9 seed game that will be played a day earlier. Currently Maryland and Michigan State would be Nos. 8 and 9 seeds.
First things first, however.
Purdue will need to take much better care of the basketball if it is to beat Iowa tonight.
Against the Hoosiers, the Boilermakers, who trailed by as many as double digits, turned the ball over a total of 16 times, including 11 in the opening 20 minutes. Credit Mike Woodson’s team’s pressure defense for creating a majority of those miscues.
Also, Purdue entered the game against IU as the Big Ten’s best foul shooting team (knocking down 75 percent of their freebies), but struggled from the charity stripe in Assembly Hall, and it cost them dearly. The Boilermakers went just 10-of-17 from the foul line (58.8 percent).
Despite outrebounding the Hoosiers by 15 and mounting an impressive second-half comeback, the turnovers and sub-par foul shooting proved to be too much to overcome.
Now, Purdue will have to deal with an Iowa team that comes in rolling. Fran McCaffery’s team has won three in a row to improve to 15-8 overall, 7-5 in the Big Ten. In fact, the Hawkeyes have reeled off seven victories in their last nine outings.
You can bet Iowa will pressure Purdue bringing the ball up the court, probably picking them up three-quarter court and trapping whenever possible.
The Boilermakers will also have their hands full with Iowa’s talented junior forward Kris Murray, who leads the Hawkeyes, averaging 20.5 points per game, and 8.5 rebounds per game.
Murray is expected to bypass his senior year next year and enter the NBA Draft, where he will be a first-round pick this June.
Naturally Iowa will have its hands full with Purdue’s 7-foot-4 junior center Zach Edey, who continues to widen his lead to capture National Player-of-the-Year honors.
A short time ago, Edey was named to the Naismith Trophy Player of the Year Midseason Team.
On Monday, he earned his sixth Big Ten Player of the Week Award, tying him for the most in school history, after he poured in 33 points and grabbed 18 rebounds against the Hoosiers.
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