The Purdue men’s basketball team hits the road for the first time in the 2026-27 season on Thursday night, traveling to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to face Purdue Fort Wayne at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET at the 12,000-seat venue, with the exhibition matchup broadcast on B1G+ and available on the Purdue Global Radio Network.
Thursday’s contest marks the second of three exhibition games for the Boilermakers, who opened their preseason schedule on Sunday with an 87-55 victory over Ball State. Historically, Purdue has never won an exhibition game on the road. Following the matchup with the Mastodons, the Boilermakers will remain away from home to square off against No. 4-ranked Connecticut on October 27 at PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford, Connecticut. The regular season officially opens six days later on November 2 against No. 15-ranked Gonzaga in Las Vegas.
Head coach Matt Painter enters Thursday’s game with a 32-3 record in exhibition contests during his tenure at Purdue. All-time, the Boilermakers hold a 72-10 record in exhibition play, though they stand at just 2-3 against collegiate opponents in exhibition settings. Sunday’s win over Ball State snapped a three-game exhibition losing skid against Division I foes, a stretch that included losses to No. 14 Arkansas in October 2023, No. 15 Creighton in October 2024, and No. 9 Kentucky in October 2025.
In regular-season play, Purdue holds a 6-0 all-time advantage over Purdue Fort Wayne, though the two in-state programs have not met since December 8, 2014. Since the start of the 2016-17 season, Purdue has posted a 27-7 record against in-state Division I opponents, including a 15-1 mark inside Mackey Arena. When including exhibition games against all in-state foes, that record rises to 34-7 overall and 22-1 at home.
Purdue enters the new campaign returning just 41 starts and 34.6 percent of its scoring from last year’s squad that finished with a 30-9 overall record. The 41 returning starts are tied for the fewest during the Matt Painter era, matching the 2018-19 season when the team went 26-10 and reached the Elite Eight. Under Painter, Purdue has returned under 40 percent of its starters five previous times, compiling a combined 118-55 record and capturing Big Ten regular-season titles the last two times it occurred in 2019 and 2023.
The preseason polls brought a notable shift for the program, as Purdue landed third among teams receiving votes in the preseason AP Top 25 poll. That placement ended a streak of 79 consecutive weeks ranked in the AP Top 25, which stood as the longest in school history and the second-longest active streak in the country. Since March 1, 2021, the Boilermakers have appeared in 101 of the last 104 AP polls, with preseason rankings accounting for two of the three weeks they were unranked. Additionally, for the first time since the 2014-15 season, Purdue did not place a player on the preseason All-Big Ten Team.
Landmarks loom on the horizon for Painter, who has accumulated 501 wins and sits just 12 victories away from passing his mentor, Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Gene Keady, on the school’s all-time wins list. The earliest Painter can surpass Keady’s 513 wins would be December 11 against Tennessee. When Painter secured his 500th win last season against Miami in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Purdue joined Kansas as the only two schools in NCAA history to feature two coaches with 500 victories.
On the court, the Boilermakers flashed sharp shooting in their exhibition opener against Ball State, setting a school exhibition game record with 17 three-pointers. C.J. Cox and Gicarri Harris combined to shoot 9-of-13 from beyond the arc. Across their last two exhibition games dating back to last season, the duo has combined to shoot 15-of-21 from long distance.
Off the court, fan support remains robust. Purdue has already sold out 15 of its 17 regular-season games for the upcoming campaign, leaving tickets remaining only for matchups against Cal Baptist and USC. With those sellouts secured, the program’s regular-season sellout streak will extend to at least 113 games, dating back to the 2018-19 season.
