Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Purdue Boilermakers: Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 2/19/2023

Time: 1 p.m. ET

Venue: Mackey Arena, West Lafayette, IN

Where to watch: CBS

DraftKings: Purdue -12.5

FanDuel: Purdue -12.5

BetMGM: Purdue -12.5

Caesars: Purdue -12.5

Ohio State: 11-15 (3-12 Big Ten)

No. 3 Purdue: 23-4 (12-4 Big Ten)

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This is suddenly not a good time to be the Purdue Boilermakers. It would appear that their time in the top 25 is soon to be gone, and one can only imagine what that’s going to do for the future prospects of the Big Ten after losing three of four going into Sunday’s matchup against the Ohio State Buckeyes. No, I don’t see a loss coming from this one, but another ho-hum performance from Purdue could really shake some things up.

 

Purdue is clearly the better team, but we’ve thought Purdue has been the better team over the last couple of weeks only to lose to Indiana (now a good loss, IMO), Northwestern (now a very good loss or two) and now Maryland as of Thursday, a 68-54 loss to the Terps.

 

But one thing is very concerning as it pertains to Purdue: They’ve been held below 60 points in back to back games. The good news is that these games have been on the road, and trusting Purdue at home is a much more understandable selection than having them go on the road and see how fragile they are. We might get that come conference tournament time, but we’ll see.

 

There’s no reason why Purdue should be as bad as they are. Zach Edey did his thing by scoring 18 points and grabbing eight rebounds, while Braden Smith also chipped in with 18 points. But the fact that no one else was even close to helping them out (combined making 16 of 28 shots from the floor) is abysmal.

 

“We have to be tougher,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “You have to come in here and win the possession battle. You have to have more rebounds and fewer turnovers. Now you can start right there and work toward something. We didn’t do that. When you get on the road and you have fewer possessions and now you don’t shoot well, oh that’s going to be a long night versus a quality team.”

 

That’s one way to put it. If you’re Purdue at this point, you need to run everything you can through Edey and hope he can dominate for you in the ways that your other guys can’t. You need a scorer, you need someone to impact the game in areas no one else will. This is one of those where you know it’s not going to happen, but if there’s a team you should take advantage of these mismatches with, it’s Ohio State, who has lost seven in a row and is coming into this game off a 92-75 loss at Iowa on Thursday.

 

Purdue’s defense has still been superb as of late. Even though they lost, they’ve held the last two teams to under 70 points. You need them to do that again while turning that into offense, and I think the 12.5 they are laying for this one seems like a good option to play, as well. Purdue 84, Ohio State 65

Road team is 4-0-1 ATS in the last five meetings.

Underdog is 3-1-1 ATS in the last five meetings.

Purdue is 4-1 ATS in the last five home games against a team with a losing record.

Ohio State is 0-7 ATS in their last seven road games.

PG: Bruce Thornton

SG: Isaac Likekele

SF: Sean McNeil

PF: Justice Sueing

C: Zed Key

PG: Braden Smith

SG: Ethan Morton

SF: Fletcher Loyer

PF: Caleb Furst

C: Zach Edey