Purdue’s Zach Edey cuts between Illinois’ Coleman Hawkins (33) and Luke Goode during the teams’ first meeting this season, an 83-78 win by the Boilermakers.
Michael Conroy/AP
There’s no such thing as an easy trip through a Big Ten men’s basketball schedule.
It’s one of the better conferences out there, after all.
But a “monster,” as Illinois coach Brad Underwood called it Monday, one day before a mighty big game between the No. 12 Illini and No. 3 Purdue (6 p.m., Peacock) at State Farm Center in Champaign? The national rankings say that’s a stretch.
As Underwood himself pointed out, the rematch between Illinois and Purdue — which won 83-78 two months ago in West Lafayette — is one of only two games the Illini will play against a conference opponent ranked in the Top 25 this season. When a local reporter asked Underwood what that says about the league, the coach pushed back, laughing as though a perfectly reasonable question had missed the point.
“This league is a monster,” Underwood said twice. “I don’t think we get near enough credit for how good this league is offensively. I think there’s a horrible scenario out there that we’re big, slow, blah, blah, blah, and this league’s not that. This league’s terrific.”
Or maybe it’s the 26-3 Boilermakers, the 22-7 Illini and a whole lot of riff-raff.
Both teams are offensive machines. The Illini have scored at least 80 points in nine straight games and — like Purdue — have hit the 90 mark nine times this season. Between them, that’s 18; the other 12 Big Ten teams combined have done it 28 times.
“Illinois is right along the lines with an Alabama and with Arizona in terms of their talent and their ability to score the basketball,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “[No] matter where the game is — neutral games, away games, home games — Illinois is going to put a lot of points up on the board.”
There should be no questions anymore about the pecking order in the Big Ten. Purdue’s 84 wins the last three seasons trails only Houston nationally, and the Boilermakers — 6-0 against ranked teams this season, all of which were in the top 11 when they were beaten — have spent 34 straight weeks in the top five of the polls. The Illini have 68 league wins over the last five seasons, more than Purdue’s 66 and 10 more than anybody else.
Tom Izzo and Michigan State might as well recognize their place if they haven’t already. Same goes for Greg Gard and Wisconsin, Fran McCaffery and Iowa, Chris Collins and Northwestern, certainly Juwan Howard and his broken Michigan program and all the rest.
The NCAA Tournament is coming and, where the Big Ten’s national-title hopes are concerned, it’ll be the Boilermakers, the Illini and — relatively speaking — a whole lot of riff-raff. In January, Michigan ended the conference’s national-title drought in football after eight seasons of Southern rule. In March, eyes will be on superstar Zach Edey and the Boilermakers, but also on an Illini team loaded with weapons — Terrence Shannon Jr., Marcus Domask, Coleman Hawkins — to end a nearly quarter-century drought since a young Izzo and Michigan State won it all in 2000.
Purdue has been knocked out by 13th-seeded North Texas, 15th-seeded Saint Peters and 16th-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson the last three years. That’s beyond brutal.
“You’ll get ridiculed, you’ll get shamed, you’ll get whatever,” Painter said after a stunning first-round loss to Fairleigh Dickinson in 2023. “It’s basketball. You’ve got to get better. You’ve got to keep fighting to get yourself into this position, and then be better.”
Underwood has yet to take the Illini past the first weekend of the Big Dance.
“Hopefully,” he said, “there’s a lot of chapters to write yet.”
And, no doubt, once Big Ten play is finished, some real monsters to slay.