Basketball Preview: Purdue vs. Boston College (Wednesday, 9:00 pm, ESPN2)

It's Purdue's 2nd game in a week on the Duece and a vital one for the Boilers to pull out.  After a dramatic 16-point come from behind victory against Siena (!), in which Purdue finally took the lead with under 30 seconds left, room for error is particularly small.  While losses to Oklahoma State and Washington State won't keep the Boilers out of the tourney, a lack of good wins will.  Boston College is in the same boat as Washington State - a mediocre power conference team that would be a decent win but nothing to write home about.  The problem for Purdue is that they have ZERO decent wins.  In fact, every win is against a team outside of Ken Pomeroy's top 200.  The Boilers have to start picking off some teams that will actually help them a bit in the RPI.  It starts tonight.

Any team that shares the same city as the Red Sox is not ok in my book.

Quick, give me the quick details on why Purdue will beat these guys:
Boston College has losses to Providence, UMASS, and Toledo, none of whom are world beaters (although UMASS is pretty decent this year).  However, a close loss to UCONN surrounded by 3 wins (including one against Washington) give the Eagles some confidence heading into this one.  In order to pull it out, Purdue must shut down guard Olivier Hanlan and forward Ryan Anderson who have combined for over 40 points per game, while keeping Joe Rahon quiet from 3-point range.  BC has quite an offensive arsenal for being a basement team in their conference, so expect Purdue to score and score often.  I fully expect the Boilers to run, attempting to get a number of transition buckets.  If the running game isn't working, the Boilers may not have enough firepower to pull it out.

Mackey should be looking pretty cool tonight according to this picture.  The gold and black shirts on national tv are always awesome - hope it gets the crowd into it.  Another thing to keep an eye on is the current ACC/Big Ten standings (heading into tonight, ACC is up 4-2).  This is among the last games in the event and could be the game that decides the winner.


Our picks:
Line: Purdue -4

Erik: Purdue 86 - Boston College 81

Kirk: Purdue 81 - Boston College 80

Boiler Up!

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