Gold and Black LIVE today at 2: Purdue's Bloom, IU PBP announcer Don Fischer and more

Our Jan. 31 show kicks off a busy afternoon and evening with special guests Elliot Bloom, director of men’s basketball administration and operations, and legendary IU broadcaster Don Fischer, who will help preview tonight’s showdown in Mackey Arena.

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About Purdue-Indiana

ABOUT THIS GAME

ABOUT THIS GAME

• IU has lost four of its past five games, allowing an average of 84 points in the losses. It did notch an overtime win at Ohio State during that time span, the Hoosiers’ lone true road win over the season. (It beat Penn State in Philadelphia.)

After a gutting home loss to Maryland, IU is 5-5 in the Big Ten and really only now reaching its toughest stretch of games. This six-game stretch starting Friday includes trips to Purdue, Wisconsin and Michigan State and home games against Michigan and UCLA, then Purdue again.

• Indiana has been grotesquely inefficient on offense, relying on mid-range offense and trying to develop Oumar Ballo as a back-to-the-basket scorer — he was a screen-and-roll player mostly at Arizona — and despite playing big ranks last in the Big Ten in two-point field goal percentage against Big Ten competition. Despite Ballo shooting 60 percent, IU shoots only 48.1 percent as a team inside the arc, 32.7 percent outside of it. Its effective field goal percentage of 48.4 percent is better than only Washington in the league.

It doesn’t help either that the Hoosiers shoot only 70 percent at the foul line.

IU does offset some of its inefficiency by being one of the Big Ten’s better offensive rebounding teams. Ballo averages 4.5 offensive boards per game vs. Big Ten teams.

For the entire season, IU averages 77 points, but that number is inflated a tad by a weak non-conference schedule. It’s 74.7 in Big Ten play

• Defensively, Indiana has allowed 78 points per game in Big Ten play and had its doors blown off a few times, allowing 85 at Iowa and 94 at home vs. Illinois, not to mention 85 at Nebraska way back in December.

Indiana is not a high-volume turnover-generation team as it averages only 4.8 steals in Big Ten play, more than only Illinois, and is 15th in the league in defensive turnover percentage.

• Ballo averages 16.7 points, 11.1 rebounds and has blocked 14 shots in Big Ten play. He missed one game due to illness, but has been full strength lately, it seems. Purdue faced Ballo in its win last season over Arizona and allowed him only 13 points and six rebounds while guards Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith roasted the Wildcats’ drop coverage with Ballo to the tune of 53 points between them.

• Veteran Malik Reneau is back from a shoulder injury but not really back, as he was 0-for-6 in only 10 minutes at Northwestern, then 5-of-14 vs. Maryland, though he did close that game strong. IU would be wise to play small at Purdue and put Luke Goode at the 4 more often.

• Point guard Myles Rice is IU’s second-leading scorer in Big Ten play, but soots just 40 percent from the floor and is only 8-of-24 from three.

• Former McDonald’s All-American Mackenzie Mbako, a combo forward who’s been considered an NBA draft prospect, is only shooting 38 percent from the floor this Big Ten season, 28 percent from three.

• Goode, formerly of Illinois, is shooting 51 percent from three-point range and given IU its most evident competitive pulse. Indiana will put him at forward at times, enhancing their ability to space the floor.

Goode is Loyer’s former high school teammate and a close friend of senior Caleb Furst.