In college sports, rivalries run deep. Some of the most historic college rivalries are between Duke and North Carolina, as well as between Alabama and Auburn. When these schools go head to head in any athletic competition, they will stop at nothing to see their rival suffer defeat. Indiana is home to one of the most well-known rivalries in college athletics. This rivalry is between the Hoosiers of Indiana University and the Boilermakers of Purdue University. It is always an intense meeting when these two universities battle it out in any competition. This month, the two will face off on the basketball court.
On January 31, the Hoosiers are taking a road trip up to Mackey Arena in West Lafayette. While there, they will take on the current eleventh-ranked team, in the Purdue Boilermakers. Coming into this basketball season, these programs were projected to finish first and second in the Big Ten Conference. Purdue has performed closely up to par as they are currently sitting at third in the Big Ten. The Boilermakers jumped off to a fantastic start by crushing their small, non-conference opponents. Their first real challenge came against the then-second-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide. Purdue, with the assistance of their rowdy home-court fans, defeated Alabama with a score of 87-78. The Boilermakers were ecstatic about this exciting victory. Sadly, this excitement did not last for long.
Purdue dropped their following game to the Golden Eagles of Marquette University by a large deficit. This loss brought the Boilermakers back to reality, and head coach Matt Painter realized that some changes might be necessary. Following the Marquette loss, Painter stated, “We’ll mix some things up. You’re still trying to find what a good mix is for certain guys and you’re trying to find production, more than anything.” Painter stuck to his word and gave sophomores, Camden Heide and Myles Colvin, their first career start against Marshall. The team scored a couple more wins before dropping their Big Ten season opener to the Penn State Nittany Lions. The Boilermakers then had a disappointing showing at the Indy Classic by falling short in both of their games in their home-state tournament losing to Texas A&M and Auburn. After this upsetting display, the Boilermakers had some work to do. The team got it together and went on a spectacular, seven-game winning streak. This streak, however, came to an end last Tuesday, against Ohio State. The Boilermakers bounced right back with a surprisingly dominant win over the outstanding Michigan Wolverines.
On the other hand, Indiana has had a bit more of a troublesome season. The start of their season looked a lot like Purdue’s, dominating their rather minute competition. The Hoosiers saw their first notable opponent in the South Carolina Gamecocks. Indiana came out on top with a score of 87-71. All of Hoosier Nation was happy to see their squad victorious and heading in a good direction. Indiana’s season, however, took a turn for the worse when the Hoosiers headed to the Bahamas for the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. IU faced Louisville and Gonzaga and lost both games by extremely large deficits. They then played Providence and were able to score a win, but that did not erase the fact that there were major improvements to be made. Back home, Indiana grabbed a few more wins, including their first conference game against Minnesota.
With their next conference game, came a loss to the Cornhuskers of Nebraska. Since then, Indiana has dropped four more conference games, including an embarrassing 94-69 defeat at Assembly Hall to Illinois. TheDailyHoosier.com’s Seth Tow stated, “IU fans have booed their Hoosiers on their home floor plenty of times the last few years during rough games. But this was different. The energy inside Assembly Hall on Tuesday was several steps beyond the standard boo-birds heard on occasion. This was an angry crowd watching its team play a horrendously poor basketball game.” During this dreadful loss, there were even chants of “Fire Woodson” coming from the student section. After this terrible showing, the Hoosiers stole a one-point overtime win on the road against Ohio State. This seemed to be a bright light for the team until they lost their next two matchups against Northwestern and Maryland.
The Hoosiers of Indiana are heading down a downward spiral and are in desperate need of a notable victory. They might just have an opportunity to achieve this, against their in-state rival, Purdue. If Indiana could pull off this major upset, their season might be headed in the right direction. Tune in this Friday at 8 pm on FOX Sports to watch these schools battle it out and see who claims victory this season.
From the sidelines to the headlines, this is Lauren, signing out.
