After losing both games to Indiana last season, Purdue is a win away from sweeping IU after beating the Hoosiers 87-66 at Assembly Hall in January.

Indiana comes to West Lafayette limping, metaphorically and physically. Xavier Johnson has been ruled out, and the Hoosiers have lost 4 of its last 6 games.

But those two wins have come in the last three games, with Indiana taking care of Iowa at home and going to Ohio State and winning behind 25 points from Trey Galloway and 26 from Malik Reneau. Indiana is 14-9 on the season with a 6-6 conference record. IU is on the way other side of the bubble and looking in towards missing its first NCAA Tournament with Mike Woodson at the helm. If the Hoosiers want to be considered for post season play, it will need to start with a win at Purdue. The best available in a down Big Ten and maybe the best win available in all of college basketball.

#2 Purdue is 21-2 overall and 10-2 in Big Ten play. It's on its third seven-game winning streak of the season. Two weeks ago Purdue was looking up at the top of the Big Ten standings and now it has a one game edge over Illinois and two games over Wisconsin.

Indiana will get a chance to player spoiler again. It was one of just two teams to beat Purdue in Mackey Arena last year. To this point, Purdue is perfect at home with just two road losses to its record.

But the truth is that this IU team, with Xavier Johnson, lost to this Purdue team by 21 points at its home gym just a few weeks ago. Do the Hoosiers have something in reserve to challenge the Boilers in Mackey Arena? Has it found something with a senior who was hurt in the last matchup? Or will it be another route on Purdue's way to dominating the Big Ten?

Or can the Hoosiers pull off the miracle against its rival while attempting to save its season?

Xavier Johnson hurt his elbow in Indiana's win over Iowa at the end of January and has spent the last two games on the sidelines in a heavy break, as The Hoosier.com reports.

Mike Woodson said Johnson was doubtful going forward, but it was later cleared up that Johnson is out indefinitely which means the Hoosiers could be without their experienced guard as it tries to make an end of season run.

"Obviously they took a hit when Xavier Johnson went down," Matt Painter said on Thursday. Johnson, who has struggled most the season after missing games early in the season, is still Indiana's most experienced guard for a team starving for play making and shooting. "Especially from an experience and a depth standpoint. A guy that can play make and can also defend - any time you lose someone with that kind of experience. That's what you need. You can't have enough experience on your team."

Despite struggling against Purdue in the first matchup, Johnson was on the floor for 19 minutes. IU's guard depth takes a big hit in a spot it couldn't really afford a loss of talent.

It's not everyday that a Mr. Basketball pops up out of nowhere, but Anthony Leal, the 2020 Indiana Mr. Basketball, has returned from an injury and has provided a big time spark for the Hoosiers in the last four games as a senior that hasn't played meaningful minutes in two season.

In both of IU's two wins in the last four games, Leal was a difference maker. He scored 13 points and made 3 of 4 three-pointers for a career-high and his only game scoring in double-digits. But more importantly, Leal plays like someone who is loving just being on the floor and the energy has been infectious. At Ohio State, Leal had just 6 points, but made his only three-pointer, got to the line 6 times, grabbed 6 rebounds, had 2 assists, and had 2 blocks and 2 steals in 26 minutes.

IU was a team with bad vibes needing a spark and Leal has seemed to provide one. He's got good length for the guard spot and any ability to make jump shots is multiplied in its effectiveness with the talented size IU has inside.

It makes Matt Painter's defensive focus on Saturday an easy one.

"If the ball just gets into the paint from post ups and from drives, now guys like Anthony Leal come into play more," Painter said about what his defense needs to do Saturday. "Transition threes, penetrate and pitch threes, inside outside threes, so if you don't do a good job initially with your defense of building walls in transition or keeping the ball out of the posts, now you're gonna over do that. Who you gonna stop? You're gonna stop their leading scorers. Then that's how his value raises. So we've gotta do a good job keeping the ball in front of us and not living in help. Sometimes we worry so much about our help defense - it's gotta be there, you've gotta be ready to help - but you can't help all the time. If you're just constantly helping, now you're gonna be in rotation, now their skill players are gonna have more of a role in the game."

Purdue had an uncharacteristically cold shooting night at Wisconsin on Sunday going 3 of 11 from three. That was death for last season's Purdue team. But this year's squad was still able to pull off the road win, 75-69. Unlike last season, this Purdue has no worries about losing its confidence shooting the ball.

It shouldn't. Purdue is the 5th best shooting team in the country, knocking down 40.1% of its threes to this point of the season.

It's a show of maturation, evolving, and growing up and into themselves that Purdue doesn't go the way of its shots anymore. The addition of fifth-year senior, Lance Jones, helps, but so, too, does your guards not being freshman anymore.

"You can't just live and die by every shot, right?" Matt Painter said Thursday. "You just gotta take good shots. Don't have a parade when you make them, don't have a funeral when you miss them."

It's the daunting task of taking on this Purdue team now. Zach Edey was the best player in the country last year. He's the best player in the country this year. It's just now, it's not as easy as trying to shut the big man down. Purdue is breaking teams down at every level.

"It creates more space to run things," Painter said of his offensive shooting around Edey. "They have a decision to make. Where last year as the season progressed, the decision was made for them. This is what we're gonna live with. If these guys make shots, then we'll just lose. But this gives us the best chance. And now people realize that if we're gonna get 12, 13, 14 to go along with Zach, we're probably gonna win the game, right? So they have to think about what can we take away? And if they really stay with us, and they stay one on one there, doesn't mean that can't work - it hasn't worked a lot - we're normally gonna get him to the free throw line. We're normally gonna get a lot of lay ups and dunks."

One of Purdue's focus will be on the glass against Indiana who has a lot of length and athleticism. Purdue out rebounded the Hoosiers 42-34 in the first matchup.

Indiana was clearly hesitant on attacking Zach Edey on the inside. Despite being a team of non-shooters and Woodson embracing a team that lives inside the arc, IU took 24 threes against Purdue and made 8 of them which is pretty much spot on to its season average.

Purdue was just 7 of 19 from three, below its 40% shooting from the perimeter average, but Purdue avoided turnovers, giving up just 8. It allowed Purdue to dominate for most of the game. After holding a double-digit lead in the first half, IU made a surge to start the second half, but Purdue pushed back and pulled away in the final ten minutes of the second half.

Neither Malik Reneau or Kel'el Ware ever got going for Indiana. Reneau was Purdue's number 1 focus on defense, and he had just 8 points on 10 field goal attempts.

Kel'el Ware had just 5 points and played only 26 minutes while Trey Galloway led the way for the Hoosiers with 17 points, including 3 three-pointers.

Mackenzie Mgbako started off hot, taking advantage of Fletcher Loyer, who gives up a lot of size to the freshman, but foul trouble got Mgbako off the court for most the first half. He finished with 15 points on 6 of 10 shooting.

Zach Edey loomed large for Purdue, scoring 33 and having 14 rebounds while getting to the line and making 11 of those 12 attempts. Lance Jones and Fletcher Loyer had 17 and 19 points respectively, combining to go 7 of 11 from three.