In previous seasons, Michigan State and Purdue playing this late with both ranked among the nation’s top 15 would feel like the Big Ten’s most important game of the year.
But entering their only regular-season meeting on Thursday night in West Lafayette, Ind., this clash between No. 13 Michigan State (22-5, 12-4 Big Ten) and No. 8 Purdue (22-5, 12-4) has no banner-hanging implications.
With Michigan owning a commanding lead in the conference title race, the Spartans and Boilermakers are left to play for postseason seeds and bragging rights instead of league titles.
Considering Purdue and Michigan State have won the last three Big Ten crowns — and their coaches have combined for 16 league titles — this is not an insignificant concession.
“Not being able to win the Big Ten championship is tough,” said Purdue head coach Matt Painter, whose team comes off a 93-64 rout of Indiana on Friday. “That’s tough. But we’re the ones that lost the games. So we’ve got to try to get better, try to improve. I thought (Indiana) was a great bounceback for our guys, but it’s hard to take. It’s really hard to take when you have lofty goals and one of them is out the window.”
Purdue comes in having won five of its last six games. The only problem for the Boilermakers is that the defeat was a 91-80 home loss to Michigan, which essentially ended their hopes for a league title.
Purdue will forge on and focus on Michigan State in what will be a battle of two of the best point guards in the country.
In fact, Michigan State junior Jeremy Fears and Purdue senior Braden Smith are 1-2 in the country in assists. Fears averages 9.2 assists while Smith, who ranks fifth all-time with 994 assists, averages 8.7 per contest.
The Spartans are coming off back-to-back home wins over UCLA and Ohio State, but they have lost their last two road games and don’t have a signature road win yet.
After Purdue, Michigan State will have another tough road game at Indiana.
“We have to get better,” Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo said. “We talked a lot with the group about what the next couple of days are going to be like and what the next couple of weeks are going to be like. Our schedule ends about as tough as anybody’s.”
Michigan State will try to achieve that in a place that’s been a house of horrors lately.
The Spartans have lost their last five games at Mackey Arena — six if you count an NCAA Tournament loss to UCLA during the COVID-plagued 2020-21 season.
The last time Michigan State won at Mackey Arena was in 2014.
“Mackey Arena is one of the toughest we play in during the conference or nonconference,” Izzo said. “I think this is a really experienced Purdue team. They’ve got three guys in Smith, (Fletcher) Loyer and (Trey) Kaufman-Renn where it seems like they’ve been there forever.”
