I know tonight's game is a big deal for at least
@betarhoalphadelta ! Purdue travels to Bloomington and is favored by 3.5.
Purdue, of course, was up to #1 at one point and is still top-5. Their road win at Illinois on Monday looks great but the losses at home to UW and on the road to RU do show some chinks in the armor. They aren't unbeatable.
For their part the Hoosiers have looked very good even if not as good as Purdue. Their four losses are:
- At Syracuse in OT.
- At Wisconsin by 5.
- At Penn State by 3.
- At Iowa by 9.
None of those are particularly embarrassing. Syracuse and Penn State aren't great but both of those losses were very close and note that all four were on the road. The Hoosiers haven't lost in Bloomington since losing to #3 Michigan on February 27, 2021.
That makes this an intriguing match-up to me. I could see it going either way. We project an IU win but that is only due to this being a home game for them.
Purdue is probably the best team in the league and when they are playing at their best there is no doubt about that. They are #5 in BPI (next best is #11 IL), and #4 in both the AP and coaches polls (UW is next best in both at #8). Despite that the Boilermakers are currently 1-1/2 games behind co-leaders UW and IL, 1 game behind MSU, and 1/2 game behind tOSU/RU and they still have some very tough road games remaining (@UW, @MSU).
Purdue's next two road games will tell us a lot about how the Boilermakers will fare in the league. They are in Bloomington tonight then in Iowa City a week from tonight. Both are projected losses in our tier system but we acknowledge that PU is better than IU and IA, we just project losses in these games due to location. If Purdue loses these two that will give them four league losses. At that point they would likely need to win out to even tie for the league title so their margin for error would be gone before January ended and it just isn't very likely that they could get through all of February and a couple games in March without losing somewhere along the way. OTOH, if they win both their projected finish would improve to 15-4 which is only 1/2 game out of first (UW/IL/tOSU all at 16-4).