Purdue familiar for MSU

EAST LANSING - One decade ago, a third-year coach and his young team, picked by no one to contend for a Big Ten championship, tore through the league for the first of four straight league titles.

That was Michigan State in 1997-98. Could it be Purdue in 2007-08?

There are parallels. Tom Izzo had moderate success in his first two seasons, then suffered a bad loss to Detroit early in his third before the Spartans took off.

Matt Painter was 31-31 in his first two seasons at Purdue. The Boilermakers lost to Wofford in December but now sit alone in first place in the Big Ten at 10-1, with MSU set to visit Tuesday.

Purdue's surprise win at Wisconsin on Saturday served notice that this collection of freshmen and sophomores is here to win now. If the Spartans (20-3 overall, 8-2 Big Ten) are going to have any shot at the Big Ten title they were picked to win, they'll probably need to sneak a victory out of Mackey Arena.

"Everybody understands the situation," MSU senior center Drew Naymick said after collecting 10 points, eight rebounds and a career-high six blocks in Saturday's 70-55 win over Northwestern. "This is a huge game. We've got to stick together and be tougher on both ends of the floor."

After Purdue, the Spartans travel to Indiana for a Saturday night affair. The Hoosiers won at Ohio State on Sunday, improving to 9-1 in conference play, just a half-game behind Purdue.

With the road victories, Indiana and Purdue are in the best position in the Big Ten race. Now MSU needs a road win or two of its own to re-enter the race.

It starts with the Boilermakers, whose lone Big Ten loss came at MSU in the second game of league play on Jan. 8. The Spartans raced to a 25-9 lead in that game, only to fall behind by five early in the second half.

MSU eventually pulled out a 78-75 victory, thanks in part to a clutch jump shot from Travis Walton. Purdue nearly won despite the absence of do-it-all freshman forward Robbie Hummel, who had the flu.

Hummel leads the team in rebounding and assists and is second in scoring. He led the way with 21 points in Saturday's win at Wisconsin.

Without Hummel, Purdue got 19 points from Chris Kramer and 18 from big man Nemanja Calasan against MSU. The Purdue defense held MSU's Drew Neitzel to nine points on 3-of-8 shooting.

The Spartans were led by freshmen Kalin Lucas (16 points) and Durrell Summers (15). But Lucas also had seven turnovers.

And that will be a major theme for MSU in this game. The Spartans coughed it up 17 times in East Lansing against the Boilermakers' hounding man-to-man defense. In Mackey, it will be even tougher to take care of the ball.

"They get up in you on defense," Neitzel said of Purdue after scoring 21 Saturday. "We have to be strong with the ball and take care of it. ... We definitely won't be able to turn the ball over 16, 17 times and expect to win."

Early in the first meeting, MSU executed against the pressure and got several easy baskets.

"There's always ways to make them pay," Walton said.

"This is a game that I think Kalin (will be) important," Izzo said. "They press so much, you've got to be able to go around people."

Izzo's young team took off with an upset win at Purdue in the 1997-98 Big Ten opener. Ten years later, these Spartans need a victory in Mackey to slow down the Big Ten's newest darlings.

"We're gonna go as hard as we can," Naymick said, "and put it all out there for this game."

Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@lsj.com.