Do all Purdue fans look at things without context? In 2018 only 4 Big Ten teams made the tournament. It was one of the weakest Big Tens ever. This year 10 teams would have made the tournament. It was the strongest Big Ten ever. If you think the 2018 team was better than the 2020 team simply because they finished higher in the Big Ten, I’m guessing you are one of the few Purdue fans who didn’t actually attend Purdue.
As for recruiting rankings leading to success, Tom Crean is not a good coach, yet Lansing too talent allowed him to win 2 Big Ten championships and make 3 SSs. His talent covered up a lot of his flaws. His issue is that he would only recruit top talent. He would land some, but miss on a lot. He would then panic and sign garbage players just to fill out the roster (ie. Priller, April, Gelon, etc). The Cody Zeller teams and the 2016 had solid depth, and were really good teams because of it. His other teams only had stars and no depth. They sucked. Archie now has stars and depth. We will see what he does with them.