There is little doubt that the winner of tonight's Purdue-Illinois game will have all the momentum, if not the inside track, to winning the Big Ten regular-season title. It is one of the biggest February games, in terms determining the eventual league winner, played in Mackey Arena in a long time.
Just based on the team's rankings, this is a special night in Mackey. And a relatively rare one.
According to Purdue's game notes, Purdue is 15-5 under Matt Painter at home as a ranked team, playing a ranked opponent. Illinois enters the contest ranked No. 13 and the Boilermakers are ranked third. This will be the first matchup of top-13 teams in Mackey Arena since Feb. 20, 2011 -- a 76-63 win over No. 2 Ohio State (who can forget E'Twaun Moore's 39-point performance in that one), and just the fifth of the Painter Era--of which the Boilermakers have won three of those contests.
In the nearly 55 years that Mackey Arena has been in existence, the Boilermakers have won 11 of their conference-leading 24 league titles, but how many of those have been as a direct result of a huge February matchup between two ranked teams like we will see tonight?
To me, there are four games that fit that category:
Feb. 1, 1969: No. 12 Purdue 95, No. 14 Ohio State 85 (OT)
Purdue was suffering through its longest drought without a Big Ten title in program history...29 years. So when defending Big Ten champ and Final Four participant Ohio State came to the two-year old Purdue Arena (it wasn't named Mackey Arena until 1971), it was a huge challenge for the Boilermakers.
The Buckeyes, under coach Fred Taylor, roughed up Purdue's junior All-American Rick Mount, holding him to "just" 20 points, but the Boilermakers managed to get the game to overtime before winning handily in the extra period.
The 1968-69 Boilermakers, under coach George King, went undefeated on their home court that season, and won the conference title with a 13-1 record. Purdue advanced to the national championship game before losing to UCLA.
Feb. 25, 1984: No. 13 Purdue 59, No. 6 Illinois 55
Picked by the experts in the preseason to finish ninth in the Big Ten, "Keady's Kids" pulled one of the biggest surprises in Purdue and Big Ten history by winning a share of the 1984 conference title. The team the Boilermakers split the crown with was Illinois, and it was the Fighting Illini that the Boilermakers subdued in one of the wildest Mackey Arena environments in memory.
Jim Rowinski, the senior center, went from walk-on to Big Ten MVP in the span of five seasons in West Lafayette, and he was dominant inside with 24 points and 13 rebounds. After the Illinois game, Rowinski was nicknamed "The Prince of Pecs" by Sports Illustrated as the Boilermakers were featured in an article written by Curry Kirkpatrick, which was akin in 2022 terms to being the lead on ESPN's Scott Van Pelt's "SportsCenter."
Coach Gene Keady's fourth Purdue team was more than Rowinski as it was a well-rounded outfit. Guard Ricky Hall was voted the league's first defensive player-of-the-year. Fellow guards Steve Reid, who was Purdue's lone other double-figures scorer with 14, and Curt Clawson and forwards James Bullock, Mark Atkinson and Greg Eifert (the father of Grady) were tough minded defensively, and good enough offensively to deliver a share of conference crown in the most improbable of circumstances.
Feb. 26, 1987: No. 6 Purdue 75, No. 3 Indiana 64
It was one of the classic matchups in an era where it seemed like every Purdue-Indiana, Bob Knight vs.Gene Keady contest was a donnybrook.
And this game was no different. For the Thursday night contest, tickets were being scalped outside of Mackey Arena for nearly $1,000 (in 2022 terms) as the rivalry between IU and Purdue had never been more fierce.
Purdue's junior trio of Troy Lewis, Todd Mitchell and Everette Stephens and senior Doug Lee led a balanced attack that gave the Boilermakers a measure of revenge for an 11-point loss in Assembly Hall a few weeks earlier.
The victory gave Purdue a one-game lead over Indiana in the conference race, with four games to go. Unfortunately, the Boilermakers ended up sharing the '87 crown with IU after the Gold and Black were pounded at Michigan on the last game of the regular season.
The Hoosiers earned the No. 1 seed which allowed them to play in Indianapolis and Cincinnati the first two weekends of the NCAA Tournament en route to the '87 NCAA title. Purdue was relegated to a No. 3 seed in Syracuse N.Y., and lost to Florida in the Round of 32.
Feb. 17, 1996: No. 9 Purdue 66, No. 11 Penn State 49
Using the winning Keady formula of defense and efficient offense, Purdue made easy work of Penn State in a game that was a battle for the conference lead. The victory allowed the Boilermakers to separate from the Lions and to traverse a relatively easy path to the conference title. A couple of weeks later, Purdue would become the first team since Ohio State 34 years earlier to win the Big Ten title outright in three consecutive years.
Penn State entered the game as the nation's leader in three-point shooting, but the smothering Boilermakers' D held the Lions to just 28 percent from deep and forced 24 turnovers. Their leading scorer, Glenn Sekunda, was held scoreless.
While it wasn't as big a surprise as 1984, Purdue still was not expected to compete for the Big Ten crown in 1996. After all, All-Big Ten players Glenn Robinson and Cuonzo Martin had departed in each of the past two seasons, leaving a group of six seniors and talented sophomores Brad Miller and Chad Austin to carry the load. Miller came off the bench to lead all Purdue scorers with 17 while Austin added 15.
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