Rivalry time!
#16 Indiana women’s basketball opens its season series with Purdue tomorrow afternoon in West Lafayette with the Barn Burner Trophy Game.
Purdue leads the all-time series, 53-40, but recent history favors the Hoosiers. Indiana swept the series for a fourth-straight season in 2022-23 and has won nine consecutive Trophy games.
Last time the two teams met was especially sweet for Indiana as the Hoosiers clinched their first Big Ten title in 40 years with a 69-46 beatdown of the Boilers on February 19 in Assembly Hall.
Purdue’s the team with a little extra to play for this time around however as a win would be the program’s 500th inside Mackey Arena.
Here’s everything you need to know about the game
When is the game and how can I watch?
Game Date/Time: Sunday, January 21st, 2:00 p.m. EST
Location: Mackey Arena, West Lafayette, Indiana
TV: Peacock
Radio: WHCC 105.1 / WIUX 99.1
Game Notes
#16 Indiana (15-2, 6-1 Big Ten) bounced back from a disappointing trip to Iowa with an 85-62 trouncing of Minnesota Wednesday in Assembly Hall.
Graduate forward Mackenzie Holmes dropped a season-high 32 points off 15-17 shooting while fifth year guard Sara Scalia got the revenge game she deserved with 22 points against her former team.
The Hoosiers ran circles around the Golden Gophers defense with great ball movement and finished the game with 23 assists. That’s the most IU has recorded in any Big Ten game this season.
You can read more about the victory here.
Purdue (9-8, 2-4 Big Ten) dropped its third-straight contest on Thursday when it fell 80-67 at Penn State. Don’t led the skid fool you though: Katie Gearlds’ bunch is a tough out and quite capable of hanging with IU.
Fifth year guard Abbey Ellis is one of the league’s better backcourt players and averages 13.9 points per game this season. She’s flanked by a trio of sisters in Alaina and Caitlin Harper, Madison and McKenna Layden, and Amiyah and Mila Reynolds. 46% of the Boilermaker roster is teammates with a sibling.
One of said teammates, Madison Layden, owns the Big Ten’s best 3-point percentage (48.1%)— albeit with a small sample size. Layden’s attempted 35 fewer threes than Sara Scalia (50/116, 43.1%) who shoots at the conference’s next-best clip.
Purdue made its first NCAA Tournament since 2017 last year and was a trendy pick to make some noise in conference play prior to this season. The Boilers are better than their record suggests but Indiana can expect to leave Mackey with the hardware if it plays to its potential.