GoldandBlack.com's Purdue Roundball Roundball is a periodic notebook to be published throughout the season, or at least until we start forgetting to do it.

Eric Hunter is Purdue's best-around guard and one of the Boilermakers' most important players in more ways than one.

It goes without saying that the Boilermakers need him performing at a high level to beat the sort of teams they've lost to on the road this season.

The junior, though, has struggled lately, most acutely at Illinois, where he was 0-of-6 from the floor and scoreless, with three turnovers, two of them during crunch time while Purdue still had a chance.