Opening Odds and Game Preview: #4 Purdue vs Indiana

Ah. Is there anything better than IU vs. Purdue? A true rivalry. A state made for basketball. The purest of sports in the place where it is purest.

Of course, competitiveness would certainly add to the mystique. I guess the games have been close. There was the Haarms tip-in for instance for a Purdue win at Assembly. Something Purdue has done a lot lately. Win at IU that is, like they’ll be asked to do tonight, like they did throughout the entire Archie Miller tenure.

But what does 9 straight wins in a rivalry really mean anyways?

IU is plucky this year! They damn near beat the fighting Boeheims!

Trayce Jackson-Davis is an absolute star! Any good team would love him as a third option.

Coach Mike Woodson has his team playing hard on defense. That’s commendable. They’re good on that end. They’re athletic and quick and TJD presents a unique set of problems for most big men.

But what else do they have? That will be the question as this season winds down and particularly in this game when Zach Edey is dominating inside just to be subbed out for All American Trevion Williams. It’ll be what we ask when IUs guards are chasing Ivey in transition. When they’re asking someone to guard Sasha Stefanovic all over the floor.

It’s what you’ll wonder when no one on IUs perimeter brings even a fifth of the terror those four players do on the offensive end.

Not a single guard for IU has an offensive rating over 113. They’re a team led by big men. Reliant on their undersized big man to score and defend at a really high level. They’ll now get to go up against the best big man tandem in the country, fresh off dominating the next best big man in the country.

This is a beautiful old school tale. The offensive team versus the defensive. The good versus the bad. There are analytics and smack talk and points and turnovers and angry fans acting like toddlers throwing fits. That’s basketball in Bloomington. It will be beautiful. It will be ugly.

They won’t have an answer for Edey. Or Tre. Or Ivey. That’s what it’ll come down to.

Or maybe it won’t be that and IU will stop the streak at 9 games. It could happen, but this is a rivalry and you won’t hear me say it. The school down south is still just that, below us.

This is Purdue’s day. Until it isn’t.