Northwestern at Purdue: TV, Time, Odds, Preview, & More

Sunday afternoon is not just Senior Day for Purdue, it is a battle to avoid last place. A loss by the Boilermakers assure Purdue of a last place finish in the Big Ten and No. 12 seed in next week's Big Ten Tournament. A win guarantees at least the No. 11 seed, with a 10 seed possible if Illinois also loses since Purdue has the tiebreaker over the Illini. A three-way tie between Penn State, Illinois, and Purdue at 6-12 produces a possible scenario for the no. 9 and a game against Indiana:

1. Results of head-to-head competition during the regular-season. a. When comparing records against the tied teams, the team with the higher winning percentage shall prevail, even if the number of games played against the team or group are unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1, but 2-0 is not better than 1-0).

b. After the top team among the tied teams is determined, the second team is ranked by its record among the original tied teams, not the head-to-head record vs. the remaining team(s).

2. If the remaining teams are still tied, then each tied team's record shall be compared to the team occupying the highest position in the final regular-season standings, continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.

Purdue was 2-1 against Illinois and Penn State, while Illinois was also 2-1 and Penn State was 1-3. Given the equal winning percentage I would think it reverts to Purdue's head-to-head record over Illinois for the No. 9 seed while Penn State would get the 11.

That only matters if we want another chance to beat Indiana this year and officially end their pipe dream of making the NCAA Tournament. Regardless, Purdue has the unenviable task of winning four games in four days (with only nine scholarship players) if it wants to make the NCAA Tournament. Given that it hasn't played like it wants to make the NCAAs for two straight months I don't expect them to suddenly be interested now.

That lack of interest started the first time Purdue played Northwestern. The Boilers went to Evanston on the day Andrew Boldt was killed with a decent 13-5 record. Purdue has since gone 2-9 and has fallen all the way to the Big Ten basement. In four of the last five games Purdue has played some of the best teams in the conference hard, but it hasn't been enough. Now we get a team that only managed 32 points at home Thursday night.

Northwestern has played some good basketball this year and even got a shocking win at Wisconsin, but this is still a bad, bad offensive basketball team. The loss back in January was really the blow that killed Purdue's season. Had Purdue won it might have changed the timbre of the season, but a double overtime loss where Purdue only hit two field goals in the last 23 minutes (and STILL should have won easily) was a blow from which Purdue could not recover. Credit to Northwestern: their wins over Purdue, Illinois, and Indiana mortally wounded all three teams.

Thursday night at home was one of the worst results even by Northwestern standards. Northwestern hit on only 10 of 43 field goal attempts and half of those came from Alex Olah. Northwestern was 3 of 22 from long range and they are not 350^th out of Division I teams in scoring at 59.1 points per game. Only New Hampshire, at 57.8 pointer per game, is worse nationally.

This is a bad, bad, bad offensive team and we saw it the first time around when we basically handed them the game by missing free throws and every shot in the final 13 minutes of regulation. When you lose to Northwestern you lose because you play down to their level.

Honestly, if we somehow lose on Sunday at home on Senior Day Purdue shouldn't even bother to show up for the Big Ten Tournament. It would be as embarrassing of a loss as we have seen given that Northwestern is playing worse on offense since we last played them and JerShon Cobb is out. Cobb had 15 points last time and Drew Crawford had 19, but it was Cobb who hit the tying basket to send the game to overtime.

I want to see Purdue play angry. This is a rare opportunity where we can and should blow a team out if we play mad. There needs to be some pride in playing the final home game of the regular season and given Northwestern's offensive ineptitude defense doesn't even need to be a priority. A loss would be a devastating blow in an already dismal season.