WHO: #2 Purdue Boilermakers (7-0, 0-0)
WHEN: 8:00 PM CT (Friday, December 3)
WHERE: Mackey Arena (West Lafayette, IN)
TV: BTN (Brandon Gaudin, Robbie Hummel, Andy Katz)
RADIO: Hawkeye Radio Network (TuneIn, or local listings) | SiriusXM Ch. 195 (?)
STREAM: FoxSports.com
MOBILE: Fox Sports app
TWITTER: @IowaHoops | @IowaAwesome | @IowaOnBTN
LINE: Purdue -13 (TOTAL: 160)
KENPOM: Purdue -9 (80% win probability)
NOTE: Don't forget to follow all the action during the game and chat with your fellow Iowa fans in the Go Iowa Awesome discord! (More info here.)
Prediction for tonight's game?
Iowa opens Big Ten play tonight at #2 Purdue, in West Lafayette. It would be hard to envision a more daunting start to conference play than this. Purdue is not just the best team in the Big Ten, they're ranked #2 in the country and set to move up to #1 in the polls next week, assuming they handle business against Iowa tonight. On top of that, the game is in West Lafayette and calling Mackey Arena a "house of horrors" for Iowa in recent years is an understatement. Iowa's average margin of defeat in their last four games at Mackey has been 24 points.
Iowa enters this game ranked 3rd in offensive efficiency -- but 98th in defensive efficiency. That's not exactly atypical for Iowa basketball in recent years. Purdue pairs an offense that might be even better (ranked 1st in offensive efficiency) with a competent defense (35th in defensive efficiency). Thinking about Iowa's defense trying to slow down Purdue's hyper-efficient and hyper-effective offense is... concerning. The strength of Purdue's offense lies in their shooting; they're tops in the nation in eFG%, at 63.6%. They're second in the nation in both 3FG% (44.2) and 2FG% (61.7). So yeah: basically they make a lot of the shots that they take. And those shots that they miss, they often rebound -- they're fourth nationally in offensive rebounding rate (41.3%).
Aside from possessing a death ray for an offense, this game with Purdue looks foreboding because they are an utterly nightmarish match-up for Iowa. Down low, Purdue has not one but two excellent post players in Zach Edey (7'4", 295 lbs) and Trevion Williams (6'10", 255 lbs). Who on Iowa defends those two? Excellent question! I suspect it will be a lot of Keegan and Kris Murray, as well as Filip Rebraca, but slowing down those talented giants down will be an immense challenge. On top of the killer one-two punch of Edey and Williams in the paint, Purdue has another impactful big in freshman Caleb Furst (6'10", 230 lbs). Edey is averaging 16.9 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 1.4 bpg; Williams is averaging 12.3 ppg, 7.4 rpg, and 2.0 steals/blocks per game; Furst is averaging 9.1 ppg and 7.4 rpg.
On top of all those great bigs, Purdue also has an excellent wing in Jaden Ivey (6'4", 195 lbs), who's taken a leap as a sophomore. He's an outstanding athlete and averaging 15.4 ppg. 6.3 rpg, 3.9 apg, and 1.4 spg while shooting 52% from the field and 43% from 3-point range. In fact, he's one of three Purdue players shooting better than 40% from beyond the arc on a decent number of attempts, along with Sasha Stefanovic (12.9 ppg, 46.8 3FG%) and Brandon Newman (9.9 ppg, 42.1 3FG%). Isaiah Thompson is shooting an absurd 60.9% from 3-point range, albeit on only 23 attempts so far.
To recap: Purdue can murder teams inside and they launch long-range bombs from afar as well. They also get to the free throw line at a good clip (57th nationally) and make those freebies often (76.3%, 49th nationally). There really aren't any weaknesses on that offense. And they're going against an Iowa defense that ranks last in the Big Ten in defensive efficiency. This could get ugly. The best hope for Iowa in this game is that Purdue has an unusually off night shooting the ball, while Iowa shoots the ball like they did in the first half against Virginia. That's their best bet at stealing a win here. It doesn't feel particularly likely. Pain -- lots and lots of pain -- feels like a far more likely outcome. We'll find out tonight.
