CHICAGO - Matt Painter said he was going to go into his locker room to talk to his players to gauge whether they want to keep playing, potentially as a below-.500 entry into the College Basketball Invitational.
What the Boilermaker coach found when he left us in that small cluster of camera-wielding media was a stunned team, one with a funny collective look in its eye like it had just been knocked unceremoniously off the high horse it rode in on.
Purdue played well to finish the regular season but not so well it could take anything for granted.
That's certainly not what Thursday night's flameout in the Big Ten Tournament, 57-55 to Nebraska, was about.
No one was overlooked here. Purdue just got beat by a Cornhusker team that improved its record to the same 15-17 the Boilermakers might be ending their season at. Nebraska was the better team.
And that was shocking.
For all the momentum, a word that's getting tired around here and needs a suitable synonym, Purdue built up at the end of the regular season, it was fleeting.
First off, you have to credit Nebraska here.
They played Purdue perfectly on defense, taking away its strengths and making it play to its non-strengths. When Purdue can't penetrate and doesn't have an inside scoring game working and isn't making threes, which it wasn't, it's tough.
Nebraska, meanwhile, did what it wanted on offense, a credit to the Cornhuskers and indictment of Purdue, with the best Big Ten freshman you've never heard of, Shavon Shields, tearing it up.
Nebraska was good.
Purdue wasn't.
It inexplicably reverted to February form, showing again its glaring immaturity just as you started to think it had been beaten into submission.
It missed too many free throws, broke down too often on defense, took too many bad shots, picked too many ill-advised battles, going 1-on-3 too many times, resulting in too many shots taken while simply barreling into a dude or two or three.
Does this game disqualify the steps forward Purdue had taken prior?
No, it does not. Those games happened and Purdue's play in those games was legitimate and something that won't be forgotten in the offseason as this team comes back mostly intact.
What it does show is that no matter how well this team had been playing, consistency had not been captured for good and that this group was still vulnerable, the same limited team it had been all season: Not enough shooters, not enough dynamic players on offense, too much recklessness of youth, too many shaky foul shooters.
I don't want to write the eulogy on this season yet - that'll write itself when the time comes and it will be epic - because we don't know if it's over or not, but if the season is over it ended how it began: All over the map.
That said, if you're Purdue, you don't want it to end.
I don't know where the players' heads were in the heat of the moment in that locker room or what Painter found when he walked in, but the future remains bright for this team no matter what happened tonight and a couple more games might contribute to hastening that along.
I can't claim to know the CBI inside and out, but I'd imagine if Purdue made a call, or whatever it would have to do, and made it known it's in if wanted, the event would be interested in having a name-brand program from the game's premiere conference this season.
Or maybe Purdue will just decide to call it a season, get going with individual workouts as soon as possible and dig in in recruiting, I don't know.
There are no answers right now.
Just like there weren't any answers for what happened in the United Center Thursday night.
(There was a lot to touch on Thursday night that hasn't been brought up here. Again, if the season is over, we will go in-depth on a lot of stuff. Let's see what happens.)
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2013. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited. E-mail GoldandBlack.com/Boilers, Inc.
What the Boilermaker coach found when he left us in that small cluster of camera-wielding media was a stunned team, one with a funny collective look in its eye like it had just been knocked unceremoniously off the high horse it rode in on.
Purdue played well to finish the regular season but not so well it could take anything for granted.
That's certainly not what Thursday night's flameout in the Big Ten Tournament, 57-55 to Nebraska, was about.
No one was overlooked here. Purdue just got beat by a Cornhusker team that improved its record to the same 15-17 the Boilermakers might be ending their season at. Nebraska was the better team.
And that was shocking.
For all the momentum, a word that's getting tired around here and needs a suitable synonym, Purdue built up at the end of the regular season, it was fleeting.
First off, you have to credit Nebraska here.
They played Purdue perfectly on defense, taking away its strengths and making it play to its non-strengths. When Purdue can't penetrate and doesn't have an inside scoring game working and isn't making threes, which it wasn't, it's tough.
Nebraska, meanwhile, did what it wanted on offense, a credit to the Cornhuskers and indictment of Purdue, with the best Big Ten freshman you've never heard of, Shavon Shields, tearing it up.
Nebraska was good.
Purdue wasn't.
It inexplicably reverted to February form, showing again its glaring immaturity just as you started to think it had been beaten into submission.
It missed too many free throws, broke down too often on defense, took too many bad shots, picked too many ill-advised battles, going 1-on-3 too many times, resulting in too many shots taken while simply barreling into a dude or two or three.
Does this game disqualify the steps forward Purdue had taken prior?
No, it does not. Those games happened and Purdue's play in those games was legitimate and something that won't be forgotten in the offseason as this team comes back mostly intact.
What it does show is that no matter how well this team had been playing, consistency had not been captured for good and that this group was still vulnerable, the same limited team it had been all season: Not enough shooters, not enough dynamic players on offense, too much recklessness of youth, too many shaky foul shooters.
I don't want to write the eulogy on this season yet - that'll write itself when the time comes and it will be epic - because we don't know if it's over or not, but if the season is over it ended how it began: All over the map.
That said, if you're Purdue, you don't want it to end.
I don't know where the players' heads were in the heat of the moment in that locker room or what Painter found when he walked in, but the future remains bright for this team no matter what happened tonight and a couple more games might contribute to hastening that along.
I can't claim to know the CBI inside and out, but I'd imagine if Purdue made a call, or whatever it would have to do, and made it known it's in if wanted, the event would be interested in having a name-brand program from the game's premiere conference this season.
Or maybe Purdue will just decide to call it a season, get going with individual workouts as soon as possible and dig in in recruiting, I don't know.
There are no answers right now.
Just like there weren't any answers for what happened in the United Center Thursday night.
(There was a lot to touch on Thursday night that hasn't been brought up here. Again, if the season is over, we will go in-depth on a lot of stuff. Let's see what happens.)
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2013. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited. E-mail GoldandBlack.com/Boilers, Inc.
