Pregame: Illinois at Purdue, Saturday, January 24th, 2:00pm CT, FOX
- Status
PizzaHutParkingLot
- Vodice, Croatia
House money
Illinicpa14
- Chicago
Get yourself on the 1-2 seed line!
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I know it’s Maryland, but … I’m a bit more confident now. It’ll take a great effort, but we can get a W here.
ginabackes00
CrazedUIFan
The good news is Big Z's elbows won't be at the neck level of Purdue's bigs. He has to show up for this game. Holding down Smith is going to be a challenge without Bam.
Kevin Kugler and Miles Simon set to be on the call for this one.
Took care of business against inferior opponents like good teams do. Now let’s handle business against good teams like GREAT teams do.
Rebound, effort, and shot selection. That is our recipe for success.
Rebound, effort, and shot selection. That is our recipe for success.
Be ready mentally & everyone step up
I'll stick with my postgame prediction (85-79). I now truly believe that the Cap'n going down will only help this team come March/April. Will we go undefeated? Absolutely not. But can we stick it to the Puds on their home court? I believe so! Someone had mentioned the last time Purdue was in this situation, they lost at home to a ranked team...
Keep it to within single digits and I'd consider it a win.
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
How big is this game?
All pressure on the boilers. I think they come out ready to go as well.How big is this game?
I think there is a chance this Illinois team is very special. Championship teams always have a consistency and interconnectedness where everyone becomes interchangeable (Uconn, UVA, Nova, Kansas, etc...), and you know what you're going to get each night. This team has that feel. Only time I've watched Illinois under Underwood where I don't think the team will torpedo once the other guys go on a run. Obviously it'll be difficult in Mackey, but this Purdue team is very beatable, and we may realize on Saturday just how legit we are.
Illinifan533
- Normal, Illinois
You look at Underwood's record on paper against Painter (4-7) and you could say that he hasn't done well against him. Of course, the first 2 losses were when the Illini were bad and young, then the Illini won the next 3 while Purdue went through a rebuild, and then the ensuing 5 game losing streak we had before our win against them last year was when Zach Edey was clogging the paint and drawing fouls left and right while not getting anything called on him (still salty how Kofi got hosed in the 2 games in the '21-'22 season). However, 4 of the 5 games were close with a bunch of things not going in our favor. With Big Z I believe we have evened out the interior advantage Purdue has had on us the last 3 years. Winning in Mackey will be tough but even without Boz we have the horses to win this.
Playing without BAM being able to defend Smith makes this assignment way tougher. But in some ways I like the matchup. Purdue normally plays 2 bigs. That means we might see the twins both on the court a lot. Both our bigs can shoot, which means one of Purdue’s bigs has to guard out beyond the arc. Add Mirk to that mix along with Andrej and Wagler and our size can create matchup issues for Purdue’s defense.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
And the Illini coming off of an injury causing us to be even more doubted will, as well!!
Let's not forget the Illini will be playing the team that's supposed to win the conference on only two days rest. Ask Mick Cronin how that works out. He'd probably still be complaining about the W.
- Status