There are no crappy videos causing the game thread this week, as promised. Doublegoldandblack created the alternate Game thread for the IU game last week while I was lamenting my existence in Mackey, so he will receive, as a token of my appreciation, the Hope Diamond.

We're going to need to be on it tonight, boys. bring your Yuengling, your lucky socks, and the talisman of choice, because this is a steep challenge in front of us. Nothing is impossible, however. A victory tonight would be one of the most stunning results of hte Big Ten season today, but it also would illustrate exactly why we play the game.

I will be slightly late, as tonight I am playing my my usual Tuesday night basketball game and hoping that my feet decide to hold up through it. The democratic method of the first commenter will be in charge until I get back is in effect.

It is not enough to win this game. Oh no. I want to break them. I want to crush these guys, leaving my through raw and bloody from screaming for two hours. I want to break their will and crush their spirit, because the most dangerous thing in this state is an Indiana team playing with confidence. I want to take exquisite pleasure in watching the Hoosiers wilt from the heat of 14,000 screaming Boilermaker fans. I want them so broken by the end of this game we have reason to think we'll win in Bloomington in a month just to punish them for wasting everyone's time with all the "We're Back" nonsense. After all, Lewis Jackson and Ryne Smith deserve to finish their careers having never lost to Indiana, don't they?

At my signal, unleash hell, Boilermakers.

Yesterday I touched on the fact that our own Sandi Marcius is Croatian, while Luka Mirkovic is Serbian for Northwestern. These two young men grew up int heir home countries during the Bosnian War of the early 90's, where it was a quagmire of who is on whose side.

I do know that the Serbs were fighting the Croats at least part of the time, so there is the (very) small potential that if Marcius and Mirkovic are in the game they could be overcome by insane rampaging bloodlust and go at each other. That, or the Chooch will miss his man on defense and Mirkovic will celebrate his first made three-pointer of the season with a gesture that would make Gary Neville blush.

It's Purdue vs. Northwestern in basketball! It's a Croat vs. a Bosnian! It's an obscure soccer reference that is leaving everyone scratching their heads as to what I mean!

Aw yeah, it's time to invite the Wolverines to Mackey Arena!

via latimesherocomplex.files.wordpress.com

Okay, well, maybe not those Wolverines, but we do have an incredibly important game against Michigan tonight. By my count, we need to win six of our final 11 Big Ten regular games if we want to make sure we're totally 100% safe on Selection Sunday. I say six wins because there is a very good chance that 11 of the 12 tames in the conference will finish in thee RPI top 100, and as many as nine in the top 50. That makes for a lot of chances at good wins and very few bad losses.at 20 wins with a 10-8 Big Ten record we should be safe.

With that in mind, here are my rankings from most likely games to win to least in the final 11:

11. Nebraska

10. Penn State (we need revenge for that ugly Happy Valley game)

9. Northwestern

8. Indiana

7. Michigan

6. at Northwestern

5. at Illinois

4. Michigan State

3. at Indiana

2. at Michigan

1. at Ohio State.

Got a rebuttal? Start it here in the pregame discussion.

There aren't too many venues where we have won three games in a row in Big Ten play. While most of this crew is familiar with winning in every Big Ten venue, it is hard in a league like this to win consistently everywhere. The usual suspects of Penn State and Iowa, who have been down of late, are not places where we have a long active streak. Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin, and Illinois have fairly recent wins over us on their home floors in the last few years.

In fact, our longest active winning streaks on an opponent's floor are Indiana, Michigan State, and Illinois where we have won two in a row at each place. Today, weather will be a factor, as it delayed Purdue's travel plans into this:

Brendan Murphy @BMurphySports

So Purdue's men's basketball team had to bus to East Lansing and left around 5 this morning. That should make for an alert team today. #not

Ouch! Well, It's Open Thread time anyway. Let's get our boys some coffee and get them a win.

We need this game tonight. Yes, the Hawkeyes are playing some pretty solid basketball at the moment, but they still have an RPI in the 100s. As far as I am concerned, they can continue their rampage of upsets starting tomorrow after we secure our second win against them and can bask in their RPI-building crusade.

Another we need this game is that our schedule gets pretty damn brutal over the next several games. Currently, nine Big Ten teams sit in the top 50 of the RPI, with us at the bottom of that pile. We don't get another sub-50 RPI team until February 22nd when we host Nebraska, and that is one of just two (the home finale against Penn State being the other) games left against sub-50 teams. By my math, we're going to need to win at least four of those remaining 10 Top-50 games to feel totally safe on Selection Sunday, in addition to the three remaining sub-100 gmaes against Iowa, Nebraska, and Penn State.

That would put us at 20-11, 10-8 in Big Ten play before the Big Ten Tournament, which would have to make us feel safe. As we learned at Penn State though, nothing is going to be easy.

The key to all that is holding serve at home. We've already stumbled once, so not again. It begins tonight.

We've won 26 games in a row at Mackey Arena, which is the longest streak in the history of the building. Before the season started I felt tonight's game would be the most fierce challenge we would face to that streak. Games against Michigan State, Michigan, and Indiana now look tougher, but tonight's game is still a difficult one because the Badgers are a desperate team at 1-3 in league play. It's hard to predict what will happen, so my prediction is to prepare for anything

You guys are in charge for the Open Thread, though SB Nation's new android app makes commenting much easier, so I'll try to drop a few in. I am in attendance, and the last that time we got 10 minute of basketball perfection against Illinois.

So don't get it too rowdy in here, kids. Dad will be watching from my seats. I think I will arbitrarily place the first commenter in charge.

Also, as an added final bonus, the Pacers contacted me and announced that ticket sales were so well, they are offering the same deal for the April 7 game against the Celtics with an even more steep discount because we sold so many tickets. If you can't make it Saturday night, now you have a second chance for an H&R group outing to see JJ and E`Twaun.

True Purdue fans will never forget February 24, 2010. That night, we faced the Golden Gophers in the Barn and they were desperate for a solid win to enhance their NCAA resume. For the first minutes of the game we came out and were flat out crushing them. The Big Ten title not only looked like a certainty (with two home games and a trip to Penn State following this one), but we were playing like a No. 1 seed and eventual NCAA champion.

Then it happened, forever cementing the 2010 Purdue at Minnesota game in Boilermaker lore as That Game.

I know it has been a topic of argument the last few days, but I will never be convinced otherwise that the 2010 team doesn't at least make it to Indianapolis, if not wins the whole thing, if Robbie Hummel is healthy. We were playing too well and the pieces were all in the right place with CK3, Keaton Grant, etc. We were meshed with Lewis Jackson freshly back from injury and simply looked like a team that would dominate. With Hummel, we get a No. 1 seed and avoid Duke entirely until the championship.

Well, be prepared to have those memories dredged up, as Robbie returns to the scene of the crime. May he go Keyser Soze and lay waste to everyone with 50 tonight.

By the end of the night I hope to be in first place in the Big Ten. We will stay there tied with at least Michigan State with a win tonight, and Michigan can join us if they beat Indiana. Sure, it is still early, but as long as we take care of our business we make it hard for other teams to catch us.

We cannot overestimate the value of a few breaks in our schedule, either. We only play Ohio State once, so if we win that game we have a huge advantage in the race. Wisconsin isn't likely to lose three at home, so only playing them once, in Mackey Arena, is an even bigger break. Minnesot is a dangerous team, so playing them only once is an advantage, especially if we beat them on the Demon Wood of Xibalba.

The rest is about taking care of your business, and that is what we must do tonight. It's time to move to 3-0 in the Big Ten and let everyone chase us for awhile.

A happy early New Year to you all. While it was a great year for the site, personally it was an incredibly harrowing year and I am glad that it is is over. 2011 can kiss my ass in that regard. Before realxing with an adult beverage of choice this evening there is one more item of business: defendinf the Mackey Arena home court.

As mentioned, Mrs. T-Mill and I are in the alumni Paint Crew today. I have busted out the old school Gene Pool shirt from retirement to honor the first named student section from 2001-02. Yes, at the end of that year we might have had 50 students in attendance for wins over bad Penn State and Michigan teams, but I was there, begging John Allison to box out just once for the love of God.

Trust me, as much as you guys dislike Travis Carroll, John Allison was light years worse. He's the only 6'11" player I am confident I could outrebound over the course of a 40 minute game.