Purdue Basketball Preview: Game 22 — Indiana

After a week off, 10th-ranked Purdue gets another Friday night spotlight game, this one against struggling in-state rival Indiana in Mackey Arena.

DETAILS: Friday, Jan. 31, 2025 | 8 p.m. ET | TV: FOX (Jason Benetti, Robbie Hummel) | Radio: Purdue Radio Network
PURDUE (16-5, 8-2 B1G): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS
INDIANA (14-7, 5-5 B1G): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS

Team	AP	Coaches	NET	KenPom	KenPom Win%
Purdue	10	10	9	8	87%
Indiana	—	—	67	62	13%

A FEW THINGS ABOUT PURDUE

• Of all the reasons Purdue is 8-2 and positioned for Big Ten title contention now that Michigan State’s schedule stiffens, this is the biggest: Defensively, the Boilermakers are No. 1 in the conference in turnover percentage and offensively, they’re No. 2.

Purdue’s turnover margin of +5 is tops in the league by a mile.

There’s no overstating the importance of the possessions category for Purdue.

• As part of its defensive emergence, Purdue is averaging eight steals per game in Big Ten play.

• Two games back of Michigan State, Purdue needs to keep pace at home. The Boilermakers have played two more games than the Spartans, who now face their first real meaningful stretch of the conference season.

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.

THREE KEYS FOR PURDUE

TURNOVERS	DEFENSIVE REBOUNDING	MID-RANGE
This is the crux of Purdue’s winning formula, and if these numbers hold, it’s going to be really hard to beat. Braden Smith handles the ball more than anyone in college basketball and boasts a +3.6 assist-to-turnover ratio. IU is not a turnover-forcing defense.	Purdue’s got to keep Oumar Ballo from dominating the offensive glass without overcompensating and allowing others to sneak in and steal possessions. IU is not a great straight-up offensive team, so these garbage points could really matter.	Purdue’s done a great job exploiting opponents’ size, which is kind of funny all things considering, but when teams are big, the Boilermakers’ pull-up shooting and Trey Kaufman-Renn‘s short-roll runners can be unstoppable when rolling. Threes would be great but it’s the 10-12-foot range that IU should find hard to cover.

GOLDANDBLACK.COM PREDICTION: PURDUE 82, INDIANA 70

The trajectories of these two teams right now coupled with their analytic profiles do paint the picture of a mismatch, but you never know. But these games do really matter to Purdue and its fans, Purdue should finally be well rested and Indiana may be on the verge of going from bad to worse. Luke Goode might be more important for them than anyone else, because he’ll care, he’ll create mismatches and because IU is going to have to shoot over its head to win.