Musings of an Old Sportswriter

On Purdue at the crossroads, the Bears' possible (likely?) move to Indiana, and Alysa Liu's golden performance.

This was going to be the year, just like Zach Edey’s final season in West Lafayette was the year when the Boilers finally broke through, reached the Final Four and the national final. But you looked at all this talent at Purdue, all this experience, and you saw a team properly ranked as the preseason No. 1.

They had everything, the two graybeards in the backcourt, Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer, a productive big in Trey Kaufman-Renn, one of the top transfers in the nation in Oscar Cluff and an intriguing freshman in Omer Mayer, an international player from Israel. And, of course, they had Matt Painter, who has Purdue in the top 10 virtually every week of every season.

When they ran Texas Tech out of the building early in the season in The Bahamas, it justified their lofty spot atop the polls.

I look now, though, and I don’t see the nation’s No. 1 team, and frankly, they didn’t look anything like a No. 7 team, which is where they were ranked before getting run out of their own gym by Michigan Tuesday. (OK, they lost by nine but it was never close.)

This is the meat of the order for Purdue as it heads down the stretch, fairly safely ensconced as a low-two, high-three in the NCAA Tournament. The Boilers play IU at Mackey Friday night and Michigan State at home next Thursday. There was ample hope that Purdue had found its footing with road wins at Nebraska and Iowa, but the Michigan loss, their second blowout loss at home this year (along with the Iowa State game), surely raised some eyebrows.