Northwestern prepares for Purdue, unchartered territory

No. 16 Purdue has nothing more to prove as it enters Sunday's Big Ten regular season finale at Northwestern.

The Boilermakers (24-6, 13-4) are Big Ten regular season champions and clinched the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament, which opens later this week at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile the host Wildcats (21-9, 10-7) would like to improve their status heading into the league tourney.

This Northwestern team, now the winningest in school history, eyes a third win over a ranked team while improving their Big Ten seed and getting some favorable looks from an NCAA tournament committee likely to pick the Wildcats for the postseason field for the very first time.

Sunday's finale tips off a 4 p.m. EDT at Welsh-Ryan Arena, which will shut down after the game for a major renovation expected to take more than a year.

The Northwestern campus is still abuzz after Nathan Taphorn launched a full-court pass to Dererk Pardon who scored as time expired for a 67-65 victory on Wednesday over Michigan.

"I thought it was long, thought it was going out of bounds at first," Pardon told reporters. "When I caught it, I was like, 'the rim is right there.' We've never practiced that."

The Boilermakers come in with seven wins in their last eight games, with an 82-70 loss at Michigan the only blemish. They have three losses in eight Big Ten road games.

Purdue averages 80.7 points per game and is fourth in defense, allowing an average 66.7 points.

The Boilermakers feature five players averaging in double figures led by Caleb Swanigan's Big Ten-leading 18.6 points and 12.5 rebounds per game. Swanigan seeks to be the first conference player to claim the individual title in both categories in the same season since Ohio State's Evan Turner in 2009-10.

Purdue has been in the Top 25 all season, topping off at No. 14 in the Feb. 20 rankings.

Northwestern's win over Michigan broke a skid of three losses in its last four games and gave the Wildcats a school record 21st victory.

The Big Ten tourney opens Wednesday with the championship game set for next Sunday.