Purdue Basketball Preview: Game 15 — Northwestern

Coming off its first road win of the season, No. 20 Purdue looks to spark a winning streak to begin the meat of the Big Ten schedule, hosting Northwestern Sunday in Mackey Arena.

DETAILS: Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025 | 2p.m. ET | TV: BTN: (Dave Revsine, Stephen Bardo) | Radio: Purdue Radio Network
PURDUE (10-4, 2-1 B1G): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS
NORTHWESTERN (10-4, 1-2 B1G): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS

Team	AP	Coaches	NET	KenPom	KenPom Win%
Purdue	20	22	32	20	74%
Northwestern	—	—	45	48	26%

A FEW THINGS ABOUT PURDUE

• Matt Painter said Sunday that he’s staying with Caleb Furst and CJ Cox in the starting five, but did acknowledge his team’s versatile wings are going to be needed defensively. The play of Myles Colvin and Camden Heide off the bench is going to be really important.

• Small sample still, but Braden Smith is shooting 47.6 percent from three through three Big Ten games, on top of 16.7 points and 8.3 assists.

• In Big Ten games, Purdue’s three leading scorers are bunched together between 17.7 and 16.7 points. Fletcher Loyer averages 17, sandwiched between Trey Kaufman-Renn (17.7) and Smith.

• Purdue has allowed just eight points off turnovers total the past two games. That stat has been the common denominator among its losses this season. Meanwhile, Purdue has scored 29 points off turnovers in those two games.

• Loyer’s coming off a season-high 24 points at Minnesota and is 8-of-13 from three the past two games.

• Purdue is averaging roughly two blocked shots per game, fewest in the Big Ten. Center Daniel Jacobsen blocked three shots in the opener before being lost for the season in Game 2. Purdue has only blocked 26 shots since.

ABOUT THIS GAME

• Northwestern is 1-2 in conference games, but suffered really tough road losses at Iowa and Penn State. Its win came at home in overtime over surging Illinois, very similar to how the Wildcats beat Purdue in Evanston the December prior.

• Combo forwards Nick Martinelli and Brooks Barnhizer are one of the most dangerous tandems in the Big Ten, a pair of inside-out forwards with size and perimeter skill. They’re both averaging 20.1 points, which would put them tied for second in the Big Ten in scoring had Barnhizer not missed four games, making him ineligible for the official statistics leaderboard.

Martinelli is a 46-percent three-point shooter and Barnhizer is Northwestern’s de facto point guard. They’ll put pressue on Purdue’s frontcourt all over the floor and put a real onus on Myles Colvin and Camden Heide coming off the bench.

Northwestern doesn’t shoot a ton of threes, and is just 33 percent on those it does takes, but Martinelli and Barnhizer are both very capable, as are some of their guards.

• Northwestern has been one of more difficult teams for Purdue of late, largely because of its knack for turning games ugly and putting the onus on the officials, notably 7-footer Matt Nicholson, another COVID-year adversary for Purdue, he and long-time guard Ty Berry both.

• Fairfield guard transfer Jalen Leach averages 13 points and is a 35-percent three-point shooter.

• Northwestern is one of the many teams in the Big Ten excelling at taking care of the basketball, with a top-15 turnover percentage of just 13.8 percent.

Fun fact: Northwestern will be the sixth team out of the top 20 nationally in turnover percentage that Purdue has met, and it still has Iowa and Wisconsin to come.

THREE KEYS FOR PURDUE

PHYSICALITY	TREY KAUFMAN-RENN	DEFENSIVE DETAIL
Purdue has to know what kind of game this is going to be. Northwestern is going to try to turn this into mud wrestling and Purdue is going to have to match its physical edge.	Northwestern is going to try to beat him up in the post as Penn State did and blow him up in pick-and-roll. He’s Purdue’s key guy here. Rebounding is huge in this game, as the Boilermakers are the smaller team again.	The Martinelli-Barnhizer duo is an ultimate challenge but keeping Matt Nicholson contained in pick-and-roll and keeping guards under wraps won’t be easy, either.

GOLDANDBLACK.COM PREDICTION: PURDUE 73, NORTHWESTERN 67

You’ve seen these games before and know how this is gonna be. Northwestern could easily be 3-0 in the Big Ten right now with a pair of road wins. But Mackey Arena is the difference here. The foul line is going to loom large. Northwestern was called for 30 fouls in a narrow loss at Penn State. We’ll see if Purdue can get the same.