EAST LANSING, Mich. - Remember when the football team got through that rough stretch in its schedule - not that any portion was easy - and then the skies cleared and a team that had made real progress under its second-year staff had a chance to finish strong against beatable Northwestern and Indiana.
Then didn't do either.
Well, that kind of put a bit of a damper on things, didn't it?
I'm not comparing two very different situations here, but remember how that felt, how you processed that season?
Well, now here's basketball with 11 Big Ten wins, standing a week ago with nine out of 10 toes in the NCAA Tournament and still mathematically alive for a share of the Big Ten title.
It was in that same position, to finish strong, only in a different context.
But now, what seemed so likely after Purdue won in Bloomington all seems so tenuous.
Purdue has to beat Illinois Saturday. It's an elimination game for the Boilermakers, a Game 7 of sorts, this situation brought by another road meltdown.
Look, there's never any shame in losing at Michigan State, and like we said before the game, this had classic Tom Izzo "not dead yet" game written all over it coming in.
But this one, like Minnesota and Illinois and to a lesser extent Ohio State (because D'Angelo Russell is not bad at basketball), this one's on Purdue, which didn't even have to worry about Branden Dawson for 33 of the game's 40 minutes.
Fourteen turnovers would have been perfectly palatable if they were just 14 turnovers that didn't matter so damn much.
They weren't. Seemed like half Michigan State's scoring came off pick-sixes. That was the first sentence in the scouting report, figuratively speaking, and it was defiled from the opening jump. Michigan State's first three field goals came directly off turnovers.
When Purdue wasn't turning the ball over, it was not doing much of anything most of the night, [/I]especially the crucial first 10 minutes of the second half.
Purdue's had this unsettling tendency to freeze up on offense these past two games - against good opponents, it should be noted - and that's done it in. I guess it's irony that the so-called final piece of the offensive puzzle, three-point shooting, has finally fallen into place and the Boilermakers are no better off for it.
Purdue didn't do what it needed to against Michigan State from an offensive standpoint, that being the exact same thing pretty much that's undone it in every road setback it's incurred this season.
Today, Purdue didn't look all that much better at taking care of the basketball in the last road game of the season than it did in the first at Vanderbilt and it cost it big-time.
And then the other piece tonight was obviously the post.
Look, A.J. Hammons has been unbelievable this season, practically beyond reproach relative to past standards.
But tonight, Purdue needed its first-team All-Big Ten-caliber of player to be all he's been and then some. It needed him to lead this fight.
He didn't, showing a rare-for-this-season bout with inconsistency and reverting from the authoritative, often-dominant presence he's been.
That was a surprise, but not as surprising as the fact that Matt Costello was the best center on the floor tonight against a Purdue team that might have two of the five or six best 5 men in the conference.
Michigan State took the fight to Purdue's big men - the Boilermakers' foundation - and won that fight. Symbolically, it was a fitting capsule of this game when Costello beat Purdue to a wandering missed free throw, collected it, then the dunked for an and-one on the Big Ten's biggest, probably strongest player.
Purdue had to expect a fight tonight. It got one and it didn't go well.
Now it's one-game playoffs from here on out.
Let's say Purdue beats Illinois, which it has to. Does that guarantee a spot in the NCAA field? Nope. So win that game and then do it all over again in Chicago.
Last year, Purdue's season ended in the Big Ten Tournament. It was a profound disappointment, to say the least.
This year will be different. Purdue is going somewhere to play even it's not the NCAA Tournament.
But if it comes so close to so much only to fall short, well, I'd imagine that might not feel a whole lot better.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2015. 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.
This post was edited on 3/5 10:09 AM by Alan_GoldandBlack.com
Then didn't do either.
Well, that kind of put a bit of a damper on things, didn't it?
Well, now here's basketball with 11 Big Ten wins, standing a week ago with nine out of 10 toes in the NCAA Tournament and still mathematically alive for a share of the Big Ten title.
It was in that same position, to finish strong, only in a different context.
But now, what seemed so likely after Purdue won in Bloomington all seems so tenuous.
Purdue has to beat Illinois Saturday. It's an elimination game for the Boilermakers, a Game 7 of sorts, this situation brought by another road meltdown.
Look, there's never any shame in losing at Michigan State, and like we said before the game, this had classic Tom Izzo "not dead yet" game written all over it coming in.
But this one, like Minnesota and Illinois and to a lesser extent Ohio State (because D'Angelo Russell is not bad at basketball), this one's on Purdue, which didn't even have to worry about Branden Dawson for 33 of the game's 40 minutes.
Fourteen turnovers would have been perfectly palatable if they were just 14 turnovers that didn't matter so damn much.
They weren't. Seemed like half Michigan State's scoring came off pick-sixes. That was the first sentence in the scouting report, figuratively speaking, and it was defiled from the opening jump. Michigan State's first three field goals came directly off turnovers.
When Purdue wasn't turning the ball over, it was not doing much of anything most of the night, [/I]especially the crucial first 10 minutes of the second half.
Purdue's had this unsettling tendency to freeze up on offense these past two games - against good opponents, it should be noted - and that's done it in. I guess it's irony that the so-called final piece of the offensive puzzle, three-point shooting, has finally fallen into place and the Boilermakers are no better off for it.
Purdue didn't do what it needed to against Michigan State from an offensive standpoint, that being the exact same thing pretty much that's undone it in every road setback it's incurred this season.
Today, Purdue didn't look all that much better at taking care of the basketball in the last road game of the season than it did in the first at Vanderbilt and it cost it big-time.
And then the other piece tonight was obviously the post.
Look, A.J. Hammons has been unbelievable this season, practically beyond reproach relative to past standards.
But tonight, Purdue needed its first-team All-Big Ten-caliber of player to be all he's been and then some. It needed him to lead this fight.
He didn't, showing a rare-for-this-season bout with inconsistency and reverting from the authoritative, often-dominant presence he's been.
That was a surprise, but not as surprising as the fact that Matt Costello was the best center on the floor tonight against a Purdue team that might have two of the five or six best 5 men in the conference.
Michigan State took the fight to Purdue's big men - the Boilermakers' foundation - and won that fight. Symbolically, it was a fitting capsule of this game when Costello beat Purdue to a wandering missed free throw, collected it, then the dunked for an and-one on the Big Ten's biggest, probably strongest player.
Purdue had to expect a fight tonight. It got one and it didn't go well.
Now it's one-game playoffs from here on out.
Let's say Purdue beats Illinois, which it has to. Does that guarantee a spot in the NCAA field? Nope. So win that game and then do it all over again in Chicago.
Last year, Purdue's season ended in the Big Ten Tournament. It was a profound disappointment, to say the least.
This year will be different. Purdue is going somewhere to play even it's not the NCAA Tournament.
But if it comes so close to so much only to fall short, well, I'd imagine that might not feel a whole lot better.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2015. 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.
This post was edited on 3/5 10:09 AM by Alan_GoldandBlack.com
