Michigan State vs Purdue: Preview, scouting report, prediction

We’ve reached the home stretch of Michigan State’s regular season. And for Michigan State, this final stretch will be an excellent dress rehearsal for the postseason.

Up first, a trip to Mackey Arena on Thursday to face Purdue.

Here’s a look at the Boilermakers, along with an update on Michigan State. From there, we’ll handicap the matchup and offer a prediction.

Scouting Purdue

It’s been an underwhelming season for the preseason number one team in America. The Boilermakers are not the juggernauts that some thought they’d be this season. They won’t be a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament. And despite a very favorable conference schedule, the Boilermakers won’t win the Big Ten regular season title either.

But everything is relative. And, relatively speaking, Purdue is an excellent basketball team. And it would surprise nobody if they finished the year where they started. By now, you should know what this Purdue team is about.

Their roster is a rare exception these days. It’s built with veterans that have played in West Lafayette for multiple seasons. Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer, and Trey Kaufman-Renn will go down in Purdue basketball lore as one of the most successful senior classes of all time.

That’s where it starts and ends with Purdue. Matt Painter needs Braden Smith to take care of the ball and get his teammates involved. He needs Kaufman-Renn to be efficient on the low block. And he needs Fletcher Loyer to hit threes. When those three are rolling, only a few teams can beat Purdue.

The difference with this year’s team, and why they are still a national championship contender, are the role players. Oscar, Cluff, Omer Mayer, and C.J. Cox give the Boilermakers the upside that last year’s team did not have.

Cluff is a lumbering big, that uses his size to grab offensive rebounds. His soft touch around the rim has also turned him into an efficiency monster. Cox and Mayer are perimeter players. And Purdue’s inside out offense has turned them into spot up shooters.

Purdue runs offense at the second most efficient rate in the country. Most of that is because of Kaufman-Renn’s efficiency, Kluff’s offensive rebounding, and the shooting of Loyer, Smith, Cox, and Mayer. They’re a top 20 shooting team from two and three. They almost never turn it over. And they play slow, which puts pressure on their opponents to value possessions.

But the Boilermakers are vulnerable on defense. Even though this is a top 25 defense analytically, it has been exposed against elite competition. Combined, Iowa State, Illinois, and Michigan averaged 1.3 points per possession against Purdue. All of those games took place at Mackey Arena, too.

Purdue wants you to shoot threes. Almost 46% of all shot attempts against them this season have come from three. That’s because they are doing what they can to protect a weak interior defense. Opponents are shooting over 52% against Purdue in the paint this season. They don’t have a lot of rim protection. And the Loyer/Smith backcourt makes them limited athletically.

It’s a season-long problem that has gotten more pronounced in conference play. Purdue ranks 15^th in the Big Ten in effective field goal percentage. And opponents are leaving points on the floor, shooting a league worst 70% from the free throw line.

Michigan State update

Tom Izzo is going to find out a lot about his team over the next 10 days. Michigan State will stay in Indiana this weekend to play a desperate bunch of Hoosiers at Assembly Hall. A week later, MSU closes their season with a rematch in Ann Arbor.

With that comes a sort of nervous angst. This has been a unique season for MSU in the sense that most of their marquee games have come at home. The Breslin Center can mask a lot of issues. And whether it was never leading at Minnesota, or getting taken to the woodshed at Wisconsin, the Spartans have not proven to be anything other than a shaky bet away from East Lansing.

Keep in mind, it’s almost March! And we still aren’t sure what to make of this MSU team on the road. Fortunately, road tests don’t get much tougher than this. Nobody knows that better than Michigan State.

Can you name the number one song in America the last time MSU won at Mackey Arena?

Don’t waste your time looking it up. It was “Dark Horse”, by Katy Perry and Juicy J. Yes, Juicy J. From… 2014.

To get the job done in 2026, we’re going to need to see 40 minutes from the Spartans that is reminiscent of their dominant win against UCLA. Because aside from that performance, MSU has trailed at halftime in every game in February.

They can’t afford to get off to a slow start again in West Lafayette. Slow starts at Mackey Arena are usually just preludes to blowouts. That, too, is something we’ve seen with MSU at Purdue.

But, I do see this as a decent matchup for the Spartans. MSU has the front court to compete with Purdue on the glass. They have the type of athletes that give the Boilermakers problems. And they have a point guard that can go toe to toe with Braden Smith.

When you look at common opponents Michigan and Illinois, the way Purdue was overmatched on the glass is noteworthy. Because against those same teams, MSU was not. And in a similar spot, on their home floor, MSU was able to beat Illinois and make Michigan sweat. Purdue was not.

Tom Izzo was quite displeased with his team’s performance in a home win against Ohio State last weekend. He grabbed some attention when he said he urged the players to have a closed-door meeting. But anybody that knows Izzo knows this is what he does this time of year. The stakes are about to be raised. And he’s going to extreme measures to get that message across.

Prediction

Purdue is currently a 7.5-point home favorite. The total has ticked up to 142.5. This feels like a classic sharps vs squares game. Squares will see Purdue as the better team at home, unfazed by the big number given MSU’s struggles at Mackey Arena and on the road in general. Sharps will see that perception as an opportunity to grab MSU at a discount. Keep in mind, KenPom projects this spread around five.

I, myself, can’t quite get there with MSU. I would not be surprised to see an intense, efficient performance out of nowhere from the Spartans. At the same time, is a team with this type of track record on the road going to win at Mackey Arena for the first time since 2014? And is Purdue really going to lose four home games in one season?

Instead, I’m looking at the total. I agree with the upward movement from the opening number. There should be a path to points for both offenses in this game. Michigan State’s defense almost dares you to shoot threes. At home, we know anybody for Purdue can get hot. And while Purdue’s defensive philosophy is similar, the Spartans aren’t going to take the bait because they don’t shoot it well themselves. They’ll do what they can to get into the paint to expose Purdue’s weakness. Keep in mind, both of these teams are excellent on the offensive glass, which should lead to several second chance opportunities.

Beyond that, I’m trusting two of the best point guards in the game to take care of their offenses. Even if you have no dog in this fight, Jeremy Fears vs Braden Smith is worth the price of the Peacock subscription.

In the end, I think turnovers are Michigan State’s undoing. The Spartans don’t force enough of their own, and they are the worst team in the Big Ten at committing them. You can’t survive against this Purdue offense with a bunch of free rolls. An inspiring effort from Michigan State falls just short.

Prediction: Michigan State 71, Purdue 76