IU and Purdue have a famed in-state rivalry — but historically, and as of late, it hasn’t been much of a competition.
Purdue leads the all-time series by 35 games, and IU men’s basketball’s 67-58 loss to No. 23 Purdue on Saturday marked its ninth consecutive loss to the Boilermakers.
Since IU head coach Archie Miller took over in 2017, he hasn’t been able to beat Purdue. This is now the seventh time Miller has fallen to head coach Matt Painter and the Boilermakers.
“I give Purdue credit, a hard-fought game. I thought those guys made timely plays,” Miller said. “They did a really good job, timely plays, played well, played hard. They're a good team.”
Miller said he thought his players fought hard and competed through the end of the game, but time and time again, the effort hasn’t been enough for them to come out on top — especially against Purdue.
Except for the first four minutes of the game during which IU was up 7-0, the Hoosiers never truly had control of the game. They showed glimpses of battling back, cutting the deficit down to 4 or 5 points, but they couldn’t get over the hump.
A lot of the game came down to shooting Saturday. Purdue gave IU many opportunities to score in transition by committing 15 turnovers, but IU only tallied 14 points off of errors.
The Hoosiers missed 32 field goals, went 72% from the free throw line and shot just 5-23 from behind the 3-point line. Miller said shooting was the key problem Saturday.
“If we're getting stop after stop after stop after stop, and you can't score, at some point you cave in,” Miller said.
And just when IU was starting to build momentum to come back at the end of the second half, the referees called a technical foul on IU’s bench with five minutes left.
Miller said he wasn’t given a warning or any explanation on why it was called. He said he clearly needs to do a better job with the bench.
“It was a big play you know, late in the game. It took away a little bit of some of the vibe of the game, but I can't really explain the call,” Miller said.
Although the Hoosiers didn’t cave in, they didn’t come out with the win either. While Miller commended his team’s fight and attitude, this game still marks IU’s fifth loss in a row to close out the regular season.
But it’s not just this loss in the context of this season. It’s this rivalry loss in the context of Miller’s coaching career in Bloomington.
Season after season, the lineups for the Hoosiers and Boilermakers are constantly changing. But among those changes, Miller has yet to figure out the formula to secure his first rivalry win at IU.
The epitome of that change was on full display Saturday in Purdue freshmen Jaden Ivey and Zach Edey. The two underclassmen led the team in scoring, combining for 47 points. Miller said the 7-foot 4-inch Edey is really maturing quickly.
“He's one of the harder players that you'll guard,” Miller said. “You have to try to take advantage of them on the other end. And if you're not making some shots and opening the floor up, it's difficult, but definitely, he's a load. He's definitely tough.”
But every year, something has caused trouble for the Hoosiers against the Boilermakers. It’s been 1,841 days since IU last beat Purdue, and that was under former IU head coach Tom Crean.
IU fans notoriously hate Purdue, and they especially hate losing to Purdue. Following Saturday’s loss, Hoosier fans quickly took to Twitter to call for Miller’s firing. IU seniors will never see a win over Purdue during their college careers now.
Although the regular season is over now, the Hoosiers still have the Big Ten Tournament next week, and that’s all they are focused on right now.
“It's been a rough five games,” sophomore forward Trayce Jackson-Davis said. “Three out of the five we've been in to win, and we've dropped them. But going into the Big Ten Tournament, we just got to reset our batteries and we just got to be ready and locked in.”
