A four-game losing streak in February spoiled Matt Painter’s plans of repeating as regular season Big Ten Champs, but by bouncing back with wins over UCLA and Rutgers, the No. 18 Purdue Boilermakers are still in line for a top-four seed and a double-bye through the Big Ten Tournament next week. All Painter’s squad needs to do is beat Illinois on Friday, but on the road in Champaign, that won’t be an easy task.
Brad Underwood knows a little something about getting knocked off course midway through the season. The injury bug bit the Illini hard, all while illness swept through the locker room. However, now that the Illini are mostly back at full strength, they’re building some momentum heading into the postseason. Underwood’s group knocked off No. 15 Michigan 83-73 on Sunday and has also won back-to-back games.
The regular season has nearly come to an end, but there is still plenty of jostling for seeding in the Big Ten, and Friday night’s matchup between Purdue and Illinois could shift each program’s path to a potential conference title in Indianapolis. Here’s how you can watch this showdown on FOX, the betting odds, and more.
How to watch Purdue vs. Illinois
- Date: Friday, March 7
- Time: 8:00 p.m. ET
- Venue: State Farm Center
- How to Watch (TV): FOX
- Streaming: fubo TV
- Purdue record: 21-9 (13-6)
- Illinois record: 19-11 (11-8)
Purdue vs. Illinois odds, spread and total
Odds provided by Fanatics Sportsbook
Moneyline
- Purdue +140
- Illinois -170
Spread
- Purdue +4 (-110)
- Illinois -4 (-110)
Total
- 159.5 (over -110/under -110)
Purdue injury report
- Daniel Jacobsen, C: OUT (knee)
Illinois injury report
- Morez Johnson Jr, F: OUT (wrist)
Illinois and Purdue series history
- Illinois all-time record vs. Purdue: 90-107
Purdue vs. Illinois prediction
Over the course of the season, analyzing Purdue games has gotten rather easy. The Boilermakers have such an alarming lack of rim protection that the simple question becomes: Can the team Purdue is playing get to the paint or not? If they can’t Purdue, has more than offensive offensive firepower to win, but if they can, the Boilermakers will really need to score to keep pace.
Prior to Purdue’s two-game win streak, Wisconsin scored 36 points in the paint, Michigan State scored 42 while shooting 56% from the paint, and Indiana finished with 44 paint points with a 60.3% field goal percentage from the interior. The Boilermakers righted the ship against UCLA and Rutgers, but not with any meaningful changes to the rotation.
Caleb Furst and Trey Kaufman-Renn are a fine frontcourt, but neither is Zach Edey and without elite wing defenders, too many ball-handlers get funneled to the Boiler bigs. Illinois will attack them relentlessly on Friday night. The Illini shoot far too many threes, the fourth most in the country while only hitting 30.8% of them. However, when Illinois gets downhill and plays inside the arc, it’s one of the most efficient offensive teams in the country.
Illinois is shooting 57.4% on two-point shots this year and 71.6% at the rim (99th percentile according to CBBanalytics.com). Freshman guard Kasparas Jakucionis will probe the interior of the Purdue defense and find good shots for himself or teammates all night long. I’ll take the Illini to win convincingly in a high-scoring contest.