Purdue Basketball Preview: Game 31 — @ Illinois
Needing to win to clinch a doube bye to the Big Ten Tournament, No. 18 Purdue closes the regular season at Illinois for its one and only meeting with the Illini this season.
DETAILS: Friday, March 7, 2025 | 7 p.m. ET | TV: FOX (Jason Benetti, Robbie Hummel | Radio: Purdue Radio Network
PURDUE (21-9, 13-6 B1G): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS
ILLINOIS (19-11, 11-8 B1G): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS
A FEW THINGS ABOUT PURDUE
• With a win, Purdue would finish 14-6 in the Big Ten regular and secure the Big Ten Tournament’s 4 seed and thus skip having to play on Thursday in Indy. If the Boilermakers lose, they’d slip out of the double bye unless Northwestern can shock Maryland in College Park.
• Purdue now leads the Big Ten in three-point percentage, shooting 38.4 percent. Fletcher Loyer tops the individual leaderboard at 47.4 percent.
• Trey Kaufman-Renn enters the regular season finale at 20.05 points per game, tied in Big Ten play with Northwestern’s Nick Martinelli for second. Nebraska’s Brice Williams usurped the No. 1 spot by scoring 43 in a double-overtime loss to Ohio State, now leading the league by nearly a full point-and-a-half at 21.42.
ABOUT THIS GAME
• Illinois is the No. 1 scoring offense in the Big Ten, averaging 81.8 points per game.
• The Illini average a staggering 13.2 offensive rebounds per game on a robust offensive rebounding percentage of 36 percent. (They are, however, now without one of the league’s better offensive rebounders, freshman Morez Johnson.)
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• Freshman Kasparas Jakucionis is a huge guard who averages 15.5 points, six rebounds and four-and-a-half assists, a really difficult matchup given his primary ball-handler abilities in combination with his size. He’ll be a first-round NBA pick this spring.
• In Big Ten play, Illinois’s three-point percentage of 29.8 is the worst in the league, which doesn’t deter the Illini from attempting nearly 30 per game. Illinois did not just 14 triples, though, in a blowout win at cratering Michigan.
• Having transitioned years back to a more containment-minded defensive approach, Illinois is again last in the Big Ten in defensive turnover percentage and one of the worst in all of college basketball for the entire season.
THREE KEYS FOR PURDUE
| DEFENSIVE REBOUNDING | DRIBBLE D/HELP | TURNOVERS |
| Clearly the key to this game for Purdue, this applies to not only the interior, but just as much long rebounds. No coincidence that Illinois’ three-point percentage is that bad but its offensive rebounding percentage that good. They tend to run down a lot of their misses. | Illinois will want to spread Purdue and drive. It’s not rocket science. It’s Job 1 every game, but Purdue has to keep them out of the paint. Dribble breakdowns lead to offensive rebounds, too. | Do we even have to keep writing this? It’s so obvious. But against Illinois it matters even more, because A) they have transition weapons and B) they don’t force turnovers by nature, so everything they get is gravy. |
GOLDANDBLACK.COM PREDICTION: PURDUE 72, ILLINOIS 69
Did we pick Purdue in every game this season? Might have, but that’s the standard this program has set for itself. In this case, there are real stakes here and Purdue has had Illinois’ number in recent years. Purdue’s continuity has won out over Illinois’ transactional approach for a while now, but talent is always dangerous and the Illini have a ton of it.
