Inside Indiana Board

Ill be following along and posting as much as I can tonight. I forgot that I have a work dinner that I have to attend. The bad part is that its not even my work. So basically what Im saying is thanks for doing this. It will make it easy for me to follow along without watching!

No problem, Old Oaken. We'll take you from tip to buzzer. I'm on press row ahead of the rest of the crew tonight, but Zach, Sean, Ken and company will be joining the thread in a bit.

Good to hear. I will post a link in the Indiana thread over on tGB.

Go IU.

Verdell looks cautious, but his demeanor is starting to loosen up and he seems to be letting his shots go more naturally the more he shoots.

10 minutes before tip and the crowd is already booing Illinois as the Illini exit the court. AH isn't as packed as I had anticipated for this game. Still time to fill in, but with an 8 p.m. start I'm surprised there aren't more fans here at this point.

Time for the starting lineups.

Same starters as Purdue: Elston, Zeller, Watford, Oladipo, Hulls.

Illinois fields: Paul, Bertrand, Richardson, Leonard, Abrams.

As they turn up the lights, only the upper recesses of the balconies are vacant. Impressive crowd, but not everyone got the whiteout memo. Still not sure why IU doesn't go with a red out.

Hulls knocks down a contested three and we're humming.

Indiana is playing this game at a blistering pace early. Illinois missing shots helps, but the Illini aren't exactly locktight defending in transition either.

Shocked that there was no call when Leonard sent Zeller to the floor. Actually, not that shocked. It was timed well as all three officials were trying to stay up with the action.

Zeller has been, in recent games, much better at playing through contact, which I would imagine makes Tom Crean quite happy.