Derek Schultz: Purdue and IU both contenders in return to Knight-Keady era

As we embark on a new men’s basketball season, fans on each side of the heated Purdue and Indiana rivalry find themselves in what has become a unique position: contending with each other for Big Ten, and perhaps national, prominence.

In the initial Big Ten men’s basketball preseason polls, the Boilermakers and Hoosiers were the two leading vote-getters, with Purdue picked first and IU second. Both programs also enter the season firmly in the top 20 of the national polls (at 14th and 17th, respectively), a standing they haven’t simultaneously accomplished in the final rankings since 2016.

Even if dual contention has been a rarity in recent years, Purdue (26) and Indiana (22) still sit atop the all-time Big Ten championship tally, and it wasn’t long ago when this expectation was a given for both.

In a 15-year stretch from 1981-1996, the heyday of the Bob Knight and Gene Keady rivalry, Indiana and Purdue dominated the Big Ten standings. Either IU or Purdue won at least a share of the conference’s regular-season crown in 11 of those seasons, including sharing the honor in 1987 as co-champs, and they both finished among the league’s top four teams eight different times. Each school took home six Big Ten trophies in that span, with the next-closest competitor earning just two (Michigan in 1985 and 1986).

This century has been a completely different story. While Indiana netted outright league titles in 2013 and 2016, and Matt Painter’s Purdue squads have collected four more since 2017, rarely have the two been competing with each other at the top of the Big Ten table.

Recently, most of Purdue’s best seasons (2008-2011, 2017-2019, 2024) have coincided with IU’s most disappointing ones, and Indiana’s three conference-title-winning seasons all came in years where the Boilers failed to either reach or win an NCAA Tournament game (2002, 2013, 2016). Only three times in the 21st century have the rivals each finished in the top three of the final Big Ten standings (2008, 2016, 2023), and it has been 12 years since both Purdue and Indiana each won a first-round NCAA Tournament game in the same season (2012).

That’s expected to change in the 2024-2025 campaign as Purdue returns preseason Big Ten Player of the Year Braden Smith along with several key pieces from last year’s run to the national championship game and adds promising top-100 big man Daniel Jacobsen to the mix.

The Hoosiers will combine talented returnees, like Mackenzie Mgbako and Malik Reneau, with a transfer portal All-Star team. Mike Woodson flexed the program’s NIL muscle this past spring with the additions of Oumar Ballo (Arizona), Kanaan Carlyle (Stanford), Myles Rice (Washington State) and Luke Goode (Illinois).

That’s not to say each team doesn’t have glaring question marks—Purdue will have to replace the production of two-time national player of the year Zach Edey, a once-in-a-generation type player, and Woodson is facing a critical year four in Bloomington after his program took a nosedive during the middle of last season—but the prognosticators are firmly putting Big Ten and perhaps even national contention on the table for both programs.

In the spirit of a prosperous 2025 for both rivals, here’s a look back on the few times this century where both Purdue and Indiana simultaneously succeeded:

2023 While the 2022-2023 season included a surprising outright Big Ten championship from Purdue, it came despite the Boilers’ suffering their first season sweep at the hands of Indiana in a decade. The Hoosiers took both games from the Boilers, including ending a nine-year losing skid at Mackey Arena behind Jalen Hood-Schifino’s 35 points in a win that February, but fell three games short (second-place tie with Northwestern) of Purdue’s 15-5 league mark.

The Boilermakers also took home the league’s conference tournament championship, but neither team found March Madness success—Purdue fell in historic fashion to Farleigh Dickinson, the second-ever No. 1 seed first-round victim in NCAA Tournament history, and the Hoosiers were run off the floor in the second half by Final Four-bound Miami in Round 2. In the postseason AP Poll, Purdue finished third and Indiana finished 21st, which was only the second time this century that both appeared in the season’s final top 25.

2016 Indiana’s most recent Big Ten championship was also a runaway, as the Hoosiers closed the season with five straight wins to take the league by two games with an impressive 15-3 showing. Purdue found itself in the mix in a crowded top half of the standings, posting a 12-6 league record to put it in a third-place tie. That was one of the few seasons where Purdue versus Indiana was a single-play game in the expanded Big Ten—the lone game was a 77-74 IU win in Bloomington—as the rivalry is now protected by the league and guaranteed to be a home-and-home each year.

That March, IU went on to the Sweet 16, where the Hoosiers fell to eventual national champion North Carolina, while Purdue was upset by Arkansas-Little Rock, the first time one of Painter’s teams was victimized by a double-digit seed in the opening round. IU ended the season ranked 10th and Purdue 13th.

2012 I’m admittedly reaching a little bit with this one. This was a season that marked the final year for Robbie Hummel and Painter’s successful initial run (2007-2012) as head coach and the beginning of the seeds of Tom Crean’s rebuild in Bloomington finally bearing fruit for Indiana.

Neither program truly contended for the Big Ten crown, as it was shared three ways by Ohio State, Michigan State and Wisconsin at 13-5, but both turned in solid seasons with IU finishing fifth (11-7) and Purdue sixth (10-8).

Indiana did sweep the season in the rivalry, winning in both Bloomington and West Lafayette to end Purdue’s five-game winning streak in the series. The Boilers knocked off Saint Mary’s in the NCAA Tournament before succumbing to No. 2-seed Kansas, while Indiana was dropped by Anthony Davis and Kentucky, avenging one of the Wildcats’ only two losses during their championship march.

2008 Thanks to one of the greatest high school classes in this state’s illustrious history, both Purdue (E’Twaun Moore, Robbie Hummel, Scott Martin, JaJuan Johnson) and Indiana (Eric Gordon) capitalized on some standout youth to post second- and third-place finishes in the league.

The “Baby Boilers” started slow, including a December home loss to Wofford, but went on a 14-2 tear to end the Big Ten season, sweeping league champion Wisconsin and beating a top 10 Michigan State team at Mackey. Even playing through an injured wrist, Gordon was largely as good as advertised for IU, earning Big Ten Freshman of the Year and all-league honors, but the Hoosiers’ season disintegrated late following Kelvin Sampson’s forced resignation in late February due to recruiting violations.

After each failed to make the NCAA Tournament’s second weekend, Indiana fell out of the rankings while Purdue came in at No. 20 in the final AP Poll.•

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From Peyton Manning’s peak with the Colts to the Pacers’ most recent roster makeover, Schultz has talked about it all as a sports personality in Indianapolis for more than 15 years. Besides his written work with IBJ, he’s active in podcasting and show hosting. You can follow him on X @Schultz975.