Yes, Purdue is the first Big Ten team to ever play in the College Basketball Invitation, a sort of dubious distinction with an event that even Nebraska wanted no part of and other conference schools have given the cold shoulder to lately?
So, yeah, there's that.
In college football terms, this equates to a lower-rung bowl game, only without the bowl gifts, warm weather and fancy hotels. These are just games, irrelevant games, with undeserving-by-most-measures teams allowed to play in them.
So why is Purdue playing, paying to do so, nonetheless?
Simply experience.
That or maybe this is Matt Painter's way of either punishing his team - 'If you guys are going to be dysfunctional, I'm going to make you tolerate each other as long as I can' - or shaming it into improvement. The Boilermakers, already two games under .500 to finish the season and coming off a disappointing loss to, yes, Nebraska, will be playing games against anonymous opponents, probably in a half-capacity Mackey Arena, and that's probably best-case scenario
But again, if you can get past the indignities, there's no downside to playing games. That's been the stance here all along.
As much as Painter hasn't wanted the "youth" tag to define this team and provide it convenient excuses, at the end of the day, this remains a young team. Four freshmen are playing, three of them playing huge minutes.
There are players, both seniors and otherwise, who will not be on this team in a matter of weeks, but this is about the guys who will be, the Ronnie Johnsons and Rapheal Davis'.
It gives the seniors a chance to put on a Purdue uniform at least one more time, whether they want to or not.
It gives everyone else just a chance to play more basketball and practice more, the hope being any experience is a good thing for a team that returns almost all its key players next season.
What it also does is give Painter a chance to check his team's pilot light.
These games literally don't matter and it's not often in college basketball at this level that you play games that don't matter.
Who's going to have a good attitude about this? Who's going to play hard? For how many of these guys is any basketball game an important basketball game?
This could be a good thing for Purdue if simply just playing more helps some of these younger guys more than the individual workouts they'd otherwise have started right away would.
But this could also end spectacularly badly if some of these guys just cash in their chips and say to hell with it.
As has been the case this season every single time Purdue has taken the floor, it could go either way.
All the reasons not to play aside, playing was a no-brainer, at least in this one person's opinion.
Things are either going to get better or worse.
If the former, well, great. If the latter, better it happen now
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.
So, yeah, there's that.
In college football terms, this equates to a lower-rung bowl game, only without the bowl gifts, warm weather and fancy hotels. These are just games, irrelevant games, with undeserving-by-most-measures teams allowed to play in them.
So why is Purdue playing, paying to do so, nonetheless?
Simply experience.
That or maybe this is Matt Painter's way of either punishing his team - 'If you guys are going to be dysfunctional, I'm going to make you tolerate each other as long as I can' - or shaming it into improvement. The Boilermakers, already two games under .500 to finish the season and coming off a disappointing loss to, yes, Nebraska, will be playing games against anonymous opponents, probably in a half-capacity Mackey Arena, and that's probably best-case scenario
But again, if you can get past the indignities, there's no downside to playing games. That's been the stance here all along.
As much as Painter hasn't wanted the "youth" tag to define this team and provide it convenient excuses, at the end of the day, this remains a young team. Four freshmen are playing, three of them playing huge minutes.
There are players, both seniors and otherwise, who will not be on this team in a matter of weeks, but this is about the guys who will be, the Ronnie Johnsons and Rapheal Davis'.
It gives the seniors a chance to put on a Purdue uniform at least one more time, whether they want to or not.
It gives everyone else just a chance to play more basketball and practice more, the hope being any experience is a good thing for a team that returns almost all its key players next season.
What it also does is give Painter a chance to check his team's pilot light.
These games literally don't matter and it's not often in college basketball at this level that you play games that don't matter.
Who's going to have a good attitude about this? Who's going to play hard? For how many of these guys is any basketball game an important basketball game?
This could be a good thing for Purdue if simply just playing more helps some of these younger guys more than the individual workouts they'd otherwise have started right away would.
But this could also end spectacularly badly if some of these guys just cash in their chips and say to hell with it.
As has been the case this season every single time Purdue has taken the floor, it could go either way.
All the reasons not to play aside, playing was a no-brainer, at least in this one person's opinion.
Things are either going to get better or worse.
If the former, well, great. If the latter, better it happen now
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.
