Iowa men’s basketball faces full house, stacked foe at Purdue

If you’re heading to Indianapolis on Friday for Saturday’s Iowa-Michigan Big Ten football championship and thought you might slip up to West Lafayette for Friday night’s Iowa-Purdue men’s basketball game, think again.

The game at Mackey Arena is sold out, like all the other Boilermakers’ other home games so far this season including an exhibition against the University of Indianapolis.

“It's one of the places if you've been watching, they've been full,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said. “Their fans are excited about that team, and they well should be.”

Purdue is 7-0, ranked second in the nation, and a win over Iowa at 8 p.m. Friday (BTN) from moving into the No. 1 slot Monday. It defeated No. 18 North Carolina and No. 5 Villanova in a Connecticut tournament, then walloped Florida State at Purdue Tuesday, 93-65.

Iowa has a 7-0 mark of its own, and is fresh off a 75-74 win at a place typically rough on guests, Virginia.

What do the Boilermakers lack besides available tickets? Not much.

They are second in the nation behind Iowa in scoring, second in field goal percentage (54.5 percent), second in 3-point percentage (44.2 percent) and second in rebounding margin (+16.0).

Coach Matt Painter plays 10 players extensively. Guard Eric Hunter Jr. comes off the bench. He started 53 games for Purdue over the previous two years. Senior center Trevion Williams off the bench, and he was first-team All-Big Ten last season.

The 6-foot-10, 255-pound Williams and 7-4 starting sophomore Zach Edey both average 18.6 minutes. They have combined for 29.2 points and 14.5 rebounds per game.

“They have a quality player at every position and a quality backup at every position,” McCaffery said. “All of them can score. They have multiple 3-point shooters. They have a lot of size. They have experience.”

So, do you just cede this game to the Boilermakers? That wouldn’t be very sporting.

“We’ve got to do a phenomenal job defensively,” Iowa guard Jordan Bohannon said.

“For us to kind of be undersized and matched up against them down low, we’ve got to have all five guys rebounding, all five guys helping our big guys down low to do what we can to come out of there with the win.”

Bohannon, who scored a game-high 20 points at Virginia, averages less than one rebound.

“They’re really tall up front,” said Iowa leading scorer/rebounder/shot-blocker Keegan Murray, “and there’s ways we can exploit that on offense and also use our quickness on defense.

“Just be solid all around and I think we’ll have a good chance there.”

Perhaps the best chance of Iowa success is for Purdue sophomore guard Jaden Ivey to have an uncharacteristically poor performance. Ivey is strong and explosive, good at penetrating, passing and ball-handling, and is a tenacious defender. He looks like a 2022 NBA lottery pick.

“He has blinding speed, but he also makes plays.” McCaffery said. “He finds people, he hits 3s. He's always coming at you. He's an effective attack guy and puts pressure on your defense, especially in transition.”

So, this game is one tough task for Iowa.

“You want to be on those big moments on that big stage, playing in front of a sold-out crowd against the top team in the country,” Murray said.

In that case, this game is everything the Hawkeyes want. Or think they do.

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