Welcome back, Purdue.
After spending the overwhelming majority of this season looking like some cruel mutation of the sort of basketball we are all accustomed to watching this program play, the Boilermakers seem to have finally found themselves.
That Purdue found it in defeat Wednesday night is immaterial.
That it took 'til March for Purdue to find it is annoying for Matt Painter and anyone else with an investment here, but immaterial.
The important thing is that it happened.
A win Wednesday night would have been great for Purdue, no question.
But if you can just past the outcome, chalking it up to Trey Burke swooping in like Batman to save his team and Sandi Marcius' ankle injury costing Purdue its spirit, you may recognize the importance of the Boilermakers just putting two winning games back-to-back.
I know, Purdue didn't win Wednesday - if games were quartered, the Boilermakers won the second and third but lost the first and fourth - but they played well enough to. Once Trey Burke got that look in his eye, however, it was over. For my money, he just took home Big Ten Player-of-the-Year, when coupling this game with the end of their win over Michigan State.
Glenn Robinson was at the game. I never got to see him play for Purdue, but relatively speaking, I'd imagine that it looked something like Burke in the final 12 minutes Wednesday night. That kid is ridiculously good.
Terone Johnson was special tonight for Purdue, but Burke is special, period, and was simply too much to overcome.
Painter is always good, from a media perspective, after losses. In fact, he's more interesting when Purdue is losing, I think at least.
After the game Wednesday, there seemed to be a very optimistic tone to Painter, but one tinted with frustration.
"I just wish we were doing this six weeks ago," he said.
This is the fact Purdue is playing like it's supposed to play. The players have finally bought in and are giving the top-to-bottom effort to illustrate it, at least most of those who playing. They turned the ball over too many times early against Michigan, but for the most part, the face-palm moments are fewer and farther between than they were just a few weeks ago.
Hypotheticals are what they are and the fact of the matter is that Purdue has figured it out too late, but again, it's that it has been figured out, apparently, that is most important, because it speaks to the future. Now, make no mistake, Purdue could just as soon fall on its face against Minnesota, then mail it in in Chicago, for all we know, but that's not how it's trending, which is encouraging, because it gives reason to think this season still could go down as more a building block than failure, at least in the context of Purdue's standards. When you struggle, ideally, you'd struggle to build toward something.
Hard to imagine that Purdue got 32 from Terone Johnson and out-rebounded Michigan by 12 and still got beat, but a performance that was good enough to win was still flawed.
It was more or less a three-man show of red-hot Terone Johnson, gutsy Rapheal Davis (15 points, nine rebounds) and over-caffeinated Sandi Marcius, who's playing like that guy in the 5 Hour Energy commercial who just recorded his debut album.
Purdue better hope he's OK. In the Bizarro World statement of the year, he may be their most important player right now, and I say that after Terone Johnson just dropped 30-plus.
Purdue was good enough to win, but some help for those three might have pushed it over the top.
A.J. Hammons has hit the Bermuda Triangle in his freshman season. He has obviously had some huge games this season and there's no overlooking his ability and presence, but Purdue has played better as he's become less of an emphasis, hasn't it?
There's no question it was an adjustment for this group to be so post-oriented and maybe it's just more comfortable playing without such a heavy emphasis on one player. Hammons is going to be really good, though, and as of right now, he still has a place on my Big Ten all-freshman team (big deal, I know).
It is hard for Purdue to win when D.J. Byrd isn't hitting, and that was the case against Michigan, as he went 1-for-7 and didn't make one until the game's final minutes, though that was a big one.
There was a wide-open look he got off a scramble in the second half that missed. Had it gone, an atom bomb would have hit Mackey Arena, or so it would seemed inside, where it got really loud at one point, even with marginal student turnout again.
If Marcius never gets hurt, maybe Purdue wins.
But really, what happened tonight was just about Trey Burke.
Kid is really good.
As for Purdue, by the looks of things, it's getting there, at least.
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.
After spending the overwhelming majority of this season looking like some cruel mutation of the sort of basketball we are all accustomed to watching this program play, the Boilermakers seem to have finally found themselves.
That Purdue found it in defeat Wednesday night is immaterial.
That it took 'til March for Purdue to find it is annoying for Matt Painter and anyone else with an investment here, but immaterial.
The important thing is that it happened.
A win Wednesday night would have been great for Purdue, no question.
But if you can just past the outcome, chalking it up to Trey Burke swooping in like Batman to save his team and Sandi Marcius' ankle injury costing Purdue its spirit, you may recognize the importance of the Boilermakers just putting two winning games back-to-back.
I know, Purdue didn't win Wednesday - if games were quartered, the Boilermakers won the second and third but lost the first and fourth - but they played well enough to. Once Trey Burke got that look in his eye, however, it was over. For my money, he just took home Big Ten Player-of-the-Year, when coupling this game with the end of their win over Michigan State.
Glenn Robinson was at the game. I never got to see him play for Purdue, but relatively speaking, I'd imagine that it looked something like Burke in the final 12 minutes Wednesday night. That kid is ridiculously good.
Terone Johnson was special tonight for Purdue, but Burke is special, period, and was simply too much to overcome.
Painter is always good, from a media perspective, after losses. In fact, he's more interesting when Purdue is losing, I think at least.
After the game Wednesday, there seemed to be a very optimistic tone to Painter, but one tinted with frustration.
"I just wish we were doing this six weeks ago," he said.
This is the fact Purdue is playing like it's supposed to play. The players have finally bought in and are giving the top-to-bottom effort to illustrate it, at least most of those who playing. They turned the ball over too many times early against Michigan, but for the most part, the face-palm moments are fewer and farther between than they were just a few weeks ago.
Hypotheticals are what they are and the fact of the matter is that Purdue has figured it out too late, but again, it's that it has been figured out, apparently, that is most important, because it speaks to the future. Now, make no mistake, Purdue could just as soon fall on its face against Minnesota, then mail it in in Chicago, for all we know, but that's not how it's trending, which is encouraging, because it gives reason to think this season still could go down as more a building block than failure, at least in the context of Purdue's standards. When you struggle, ideally, you'd struggle to build toward something.
Hard to imagine that Purdue got 32 from Terone Johnson and out-rebounded Michigan by 12 and still got beat, but a performance that was good enough to win was still flawed.
It was more or less a three-man show of red-hot Terone Johnson, gutsy Rapheal Davis (15 points, nine rebounds) and over-caffeinated Sandi Marcius, who's playing like that guy in the 5 Hour Energy commercial who just recorded his debut album.
Purdue better hope he's OK. In the Bizarro World statement of the year, he may be their most important player right now, and I say that after Terone Johnson just dropped 30-plus.
Purdue was good enough to win, but some help for those three might have pushed it over the top.
A.J. Hammons has hit the Bermuda Triangle in his freshman season. He has obviously had some huge games this season and there's no overlooking his ability and presence, but Purdue has played better as he's become less of an emphasis, hasn't it?
There's no question it was an adjustment for this group to be so post-oriented and maybe it's just more comfortable playing without such a heavy emphasis on one player. Hammons is going to be really good, though, and as of right now, he still has a place on my Big Ten all-freshman team (big deal, I know).
It is hard for Purdue to win when D.J. Byrd isn't hitting, and that was the case against Michigan, as he went 1-for-7 and didn't make one until the game's final minutes, though that was a big one.
There was a wide-open look he got off a scramble in the second half that missed. Had it gone, an atom bomb would have hit Mackey Arena, or so it would seemed inside, where it got really loud at one point, even with marginal student turnout again.
If Marcius never gets hurt, maybe Purdue wins.
But really, what happened tonight was just about Trey Burke.
Kid is really good.
As for Purdue, by the looks of things, it's getting there, at least.
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.
