Hoosiers and Boilers advance, on collision course for championship?
By CHRIS GOFF
ISL Contributor
INDIANAPOLIS – Don’t look now, but we may be 80 minutes of Saturday afternoon basketball away from an Indiana-Purdue Big Ten championship game on Selection Sunday.
March roared like a lion Friday night, with the No. 11 seed Nittany Lions of Penn State giving third-seeded Purdue all it could handle, but in the end a building full of gold-and-black backers roared loudest and helped their Boilermakers prevail 69-61.
So the final four of this conference tournament are set:Indiana and Iowa face off at 1 p.m. Saturday, followed by Purdue and Michigan State. It is the first-ever Big Ten final four without either the No. 1 or No.2 seed alive. It is also the first time IU and Purdue have advanced to Saturday in the same season.
Few expected the Hoosiers to make it this far. This is their first appearance in the semifinals since 2013, and their smiles said enough. Trayce Jackson-Davis added more, though.
“I think our team right now is playing with a lot of confidence,” said Jackson-Davis, who had 21 points and seven rebounds in Friday’s65-63 upset of No. 1 seed Illinois. “Coach Woodson said it all year; he said this isn’t last year’s team.”
Woodson and Jackson-Davis have fans believing. The Big Ten tournament rarely has been fun for the IU faithful, but these ninth-seeded Hoosiers have taken it over in 2022. They are the story to date.
“This was finally our chance to prove something, really,” Jackson-Davis said. “Coming into this tournament, we kind of had a chip on our shoulder to prove ourselves, and I think we’ve done that so far.”
Purdue is still searching for the best version of itself. Matt Painter’s crew shot 50 percent from the field in its tourney opener, yet there was his former assistant Micah Shrewsberry calling a play in the final minute with Penn State down only three points. A missed shot led to Jaden Ivey’s breakaway score that put Purdue up five, but the Nittany Lions impressed.
“Just a hard-fought game,” Shrewsberry said. “Tough emotional game for me playing against guys you spent so many years with. Our guys, man. They’re just some warriors. I love our fight. We’re going somewhere.This program is going somewhere.”
Purdue hopes to go all the way to the last Monday of the college basketball season. Brandon Newman, previously buried in a shortened rotation, might be part of the solution. He had 12 points in 21 minutes at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Here’s a quick look at each semifinal and keys to victory for IU and Purdue.
Indiana-Iowa, 1 p.m., CBS
1) Scheme over the absence of Jordan Geronimo. Woodson said Indiana’s backup power forward required an MRI test on an injured knee, so Geronimo appears near certain to miss Saturday’s action. He plays sparingly, but it’s difficult to imagine a time in which Geronimo’s services are more needed than when Iowa is the opponent.
That’s because he is the Hoosier most qualified to defend Keegan Murray and Kris Murray – both listed at 6-foot-8 and 225 pounds. The Hawkeyes’ super-twins average 33 points and 13 rebounds between them. Who plays behind Race Thompson at the 4 spot for IU? Jackson-Davis might have to take Geronimo’s minutes, which alters Indiana’s defensive schemes.
2) Win the contrast of styles. Indiana would prefer to walk the ball up the floor and grind out wins with the defense that has excelled in this tournament. The Hoosiers held Michigan to 38 percent shooting on Thursday and smothered Illinois (36 percent) on Friday. Iowa shoots 47percent as a team this year in part because they play a frenetic pace. The Hawkeyes controlled the tempo in these teams’ only regular-season meeting, a big reason they beat IU 83-74.
3) Make some 3-pointers. The Hoosiers’ offense has functioned well enough to shoot 46 percent in each of their tournament games.Yet they might need to knock down a few shots from long range to keep up with Iowa’s high-powered attack. Indiana beat Illinois despite hitting only three3-pointers, two by Thompson, who rarely takes them.
Purdue-Michigan State, 3:40 p.m., CBS
1) Play with joy. The Boilermakers put together a business like performance – but letting Penn State hang around nearly cost them.On the other sideline Saturday will be Tom Izzo, who shared a telling postgame anecdote about enjoying the journey when asked if he was more excited or relieved to have beaten Wisconsin on Friday.
“That’s a hell of a question, and I’m going to answer it in a way I just told Gene Keady,” Izzo said. “I spent some time with Gene just afew minutes ago. This was a joy. This was a joy. A normal year, it would have just been let’s move on. Yeah, I felt some joy.”
Keady, the former Purdue coach, always relished the moment.The Boilermakers have felt the pressure of expectations at times this season. It’s easy enough to say, but they would do well to have fun, like Izzo and Keady, and play loose this weekend.
“We’ve got to play better,” Painter said. “We’re very fortunate to (have won).”
2) Go to Newman.
The reserve guard appears to have emerged from his time out of the rotation in a better place mentally and ready to contribute at a time in which Purdue needs three wins in three days to claim the league championship.
“I can’t even believe it, to be honest,” Newman said. “The last month has been crazy. It took a lot of perseverance, I would say. There was so much uncertainty over whether you would play or not.”
3) Remember the opponent. Clearly, Michigan State means something to Purdue. Look for the Boilermakers’ coach to remind his players of that leading up to tip-off.
“From our perspective, they’re the ones that went to Final Fours, and we haven’t, so like they’re the flagship program of our conference,” Painter said. “That’s how we’ve always looked at it. If you want to be that team, you want to win our league, you want to advance in the NCAA tournament, you’ve got to be able to compete with them and be able to beat them. And obviously this year we didn’t beat them. They were one possession better than us, and now we get a chance to go back and compete again with them.”
