The Three Pointer | Purdue vs. Illinois State

Following what may be the most disappointing loss for Purdue basketball since the first round horror show that was FDU, Purdue will return to Mackey Arena to square off against Illinois State. The loss to Valparaiso, another Missouri Valley Conference team, raised a ton of concerns for a Purdue team trying to find an identity after Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer, and Trey Kaufman-Renn all exhausted their time in West Lafayette. Although it is just the second game of the season, sitting at 0-2 is not something that has happened since the 1973-1974 season when they started off with losses to Clemson and Miami (OH). This team has an opportunity to face a major challenge early on and start to build confidence for itself ahead of the rest of their non-conference games but another poor showing or loss could spell very real trouble this season.

Let’s see what the biggest keys are agianst the Redbirds in ‘The Three Pointer’:

1 | Win the 3pt Battle

Illinois State comes into the game shooting a blistering 48% from behind the arc in their first two games. That ranks them 10th best in the country at this point and gives them a distinct advantage over a Purdue team that ranks 341st at 20.4%. That’s 9% worse than any other season from Purdue since the 1997 season (29.6%) and something that this team can not afford if it wants to battle it’s way into the NCAA Tourney.

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Purdue has done an average job of defending the three point arc, allowing opponents to shoot 34.7% but the problem is that Illinois State ranks 25th in the country at allowing just 25% themselves. When you take into account the incredibly poor shooting and offense that Purdue has run because of it, this doesn’t bode well against a team that was picked at the top of the Missouri Valley Conference.

Purdue has got to figure out their shooting from behind the arc and that probably starts with some rotational changes and getting Jacob Webber some minutes. He was arguably one of the best shooters in the 2026 class and he…

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Publish date : 2026-11-09 03:10:00

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