CHICAGO - Purdue's picked up its hundred-dollar bill off the street in Chicago and it's time to let it roll.
There's nothing to lose tomorrow against Wisconsin, when Purdue will be playing for seeding against the mighty Badgers, its SOS getting a little bump just from the Boilermakers showing up.
Purdue planted its flag in the Field of 68, if you ask me, with its come-from-behind win over a really gutsy Penn State team that might have been running on fumes.
It's a weird dichotomy, that a game against Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament could mean so much. That's life on the bubble - a loss today might have been disastrous, might not have considering all this week's bubble trouble. Regardless, losing was not an option for Purdue today and it survived its last must-win after weeks of such high-stakes outings.
Now, weeks of having no margin for error give way to absolute freedom tomorrow against the Badgers. Not that it's been playing tight, but Purdue can play loose now, the most important part behind it. The Boilermakers won the two games they needed to win; now they can play a game they'd love to win, but don't need to.
Illinois and Penn State were the two biggest games of the year once the Boilermakers got themselves in position for them to be. Both times, Purdue came up big when it had - second halves.
The same way the Boilermakers frittered away 12- and nine-point first-half leads against Ohio State and Michigan State, they laid waste to 13- and 11-point halftime deficits against the Illini and Nittany Lions.
And now here's Purdue, an NCAA Tournament team barring a nuclear apocalypse.
I'm not taking lightly Purdue's hopes to win this Big Ten Tournament or simply to beat Wisconsin, but just saying that the Boilermakers' must-wins are now behind it and Purdue did what it needed to do, positioned to return to the NCAA Tournament with a team that didn't look CIT-worthy as the calendar turned from 2014, a team that made Maui and the N.C. State game look like a mirage.
A.J. Hammons meant the world to Purdue this season. He did again today, dominating against Penn State. Rapheal Davis and Jon Octeus have been just as indispensible, both very much so in their tag-team defense on D.J. Newbill, who Purdue contained about as well as could have been hoped.
But look at the freshmen: Maybe the biggest shot of the game (along with Kendall Stephens' end-of-half three), if you ask me, was Vince Edwards' three-pointer from the right flank, in response to the Brandon Taylor triple that put Penn State up six with nine minutes to play.
This wasn't just about Purdue rallying from 11 down in the first half, but rather it rallying, then having to rally again.
Then Edwards scored on a big-boy drive to the bucket through Penn State's entire defense to tie the game at 50 before classmate Dakota Mathias made the go-ahead jumper, then threw that lob pass to Hammons for that two-hand stuff.
This was their first-ever postseason game as college basketball players and they make some of the biggest plays of the game.
Purdue's older guys have really answered the bell in turning Purdue's season around on the fly, but it wouldn't have been possible without the freshmen and the uncommon stability and reliability those youngsters provided, or at least seemed to provide to the casual observer.
Those young players are going to play in the NCAA Tournament, barring that aforementioned nuclear Armageddon.
Them getting a taste of it right off the bat in their college careers should make them want it even more from here on out, and push anyone playing alongside them to as well.
Purdue's issue in past seasons was culture.
This is how cultures are built, or in this case, rebuilt.
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.
There's nothing to lose tomorrow against Wisconsin, when Purdue will be playing for seeding against the mighty Badgers, its SOS getting a little bump just from the Boilermakers showing up.
It's a weird dichotomy, that a game against Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament could mean so much. That's life on the bubble - a loss today might have been disastrous, might not have considering all this week's bubble trouble. Regardless, losing was not an option for Purdue today and it survived its last must-win after weeks of such high-stakes outings.
Now, weeks of having no margin for error give way to absolute freedom tomorrow against the Badgers. Not that it's been playing tight, but Purdue can play loose now, the most important part behind it. The Boilermakers won the two games they needed to win; now they can play a game they'd love to win, but don't need to.
Illinois and Penn State were the two biggest games of the year once the Boilermakers got themselves in position for them to be. Both times, Purdue came up big when it had - second halves.
The same way the Boilermakers frittered away 12- and nine-point first-half leads against Ohio State and Michigan State, they laid waste to 13- and 11-point halftime deficits against the Illini and Nittany Lions.
And now here's Purdue, an NCAA Tournament team barring a nuclear apocalypse.
I'm not taking lightly Purdue's hopes to win this Big Ten Tournament or simply to beat Wisconsin, but just saying that the Boilermakers' must-wins are now behind it and Purdue did what it needed to do, positioned to return to the NCAA Tournament with a team that didn't look CIT-worthy as the calendar turned from 2014, a team that made Maui and the N.C. State game look like a mirage.
A.J. Hammons meant the world to Purdue this season. He did again today, dominating against Penn State. Rapheal Davis and Jon Octeus have been just as indispensible, both very much so in their tag-team defense on D.J. Newbill, who Purdue contained about as well as could have been hoped.
But look at the freshmen: Maybe the biggest shot of the game (along with Kendall Stephens' end-of-half three), if you ask me, was Vince Edwards' three-pointer from the right flank, in response to the Brandon Taylor triple that put Penn State up six with nine minutes to play.
This wasn't just about Purdue rallying from 11 down in the first half, but rather it rallying, then having to rally again.
Then Edwards scored on a big-boy drive to the bucket through Penn State's entire defense to tie the game at 50 before classmate Dakota Mathias made the go-ahead jumper, then threw that lob pass to Hammons for that two-hand stuff.
This was their first-ever postseason game as college basketball players and they make some of the biggest plays of the game.
Purdue's older guys have really answered the bell in turning Purdue's season around on the fly, but it wouldn't have been possible without the freshmen and the uncommon stability and reliability those youngsters provided, or at least seemed to provide to the casual observer.
Those young players are going to play in the NCAA Tournament, barring that aforementioned nuclear Armageddon.
Them getting a taste of it right off the bat in their college careers should make them want it even more from here on out, and push anyone playing alongside them to as well.
Purdue's issue in past seasons was culture.
This is how cultures are built, or in this case, rebuilt.
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.
