Basketball Game Preview: Bloomington Purple Raiders vs. Champaign Central Maroons

The Bloomington Purple Raiders will take on the Champaign Central Maroons in a holiday battle at at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Given that both suffered a loss in their last games, they both have a little extra motivation heading into this match.

Bloomington will head into Tuesday's game out to bounce back: they won a close one the last time they played, but unfortunately they suffered a serious change of fortune on Tuesday. They took a blow against Springfield, falling 84-40. While losing is never fun, the Purple Raiders can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Illinois basketball rankings (they are ranked 544th, while the Senators are ranked 138th).

Meanwhile, Champaign Central suffered their closest defeat since December 2, 2023 on Thursday. They fell just short of Decatur Eisenhower by a score of 58-56.

Champaign Central's loss dropped their record down to 5-4. As for Bloomington, they dropped their record down to 1-8 with the defeat, which was their 16th straight on the road dating back to last season.

Bloomington was dealt a bruising 72-34 loss at the hands of Champaign Central in their previous meeting back in January. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Champaign Central's Aidyn Beck, who almost dropped a triple-double on 15 points, 16 boards, and nine assists. Now that Bloomington knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.