"Ever Faithful, Ever True"
Gratitude for an excellent Purdue Basketball Season
I was in my second year of graduate school when Purdue last made it to the Final Four. Joe Barry Carroll1 was a dominant center. At 7 foot and 255 pounds, he was something to behold.2 They played UCLA in the final four game but couldn’t contain Kiki VanDeweghe. Louisville won the tournament.
While Purdue has had great success in getting to March Madness, they have struggled while there. Two years ago, they lost to a 12 seed in the Elite Eight. Last year, they became the second #1 seed to lose to a #16 seed.
Last year’s loss was mentioned by sportscasters and journalists covering every single game this season. It was one of their go-to talking points, along with the fact that Zach Edey had played baseball and hockey in Canada and hadn’t played basketball until his sophomore year of high school. And that Zack was big at 7’4” and 300 pounds.
I started watching Purdue this season during the Maui Invitational. They were beating Gonzaga, a perennial powerhouse. They then beat Tennessee and Marquette. They were unranked at the time and people (including me) started thinking that thsi team was different from prior seasons. Earlier in the season, they had beaten Xavier. Still before the Big Ten season got underway, they beat Alabama and Arizona (#1 at the time).
Edey, the 2023 player of the year, was even better than he was then. The now-sophomore guards, Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer, had gained more than a year of poise. Sophomore Trey Kaufman-Renn was playing in the forward slot. Guard Lance Jones had come in on the transfer portal from Southern Illinois. The bench was still strong.
Purdue was ranked between #1 and #3 all season. I’m pretty sure I only missed watching 2 of the 39 games they played this year. With a final record of 34-5, they were fun to watch.
As the tournament approached during February and early March, everyone had Purdue pegged as a #1 seed along with UConn, North Carolina, and Houston. Dedicated to not repeating prior year losses, Purdue was dominant going through the tournament (beating two teams they beat in Hawaii).
For the last few weeks of the season, they had trailed UConn in the national rankings. Sportcasters suggested that there was a gulf between those two and the rest of the field. I watched a couple of UConn games (hoping some good team could beat them) but every time things looked tight around halftime, UConn blew things open in the second half.
UConn is big and fast. They out-rebound their opponents and play crushing defense. They also have an uncanny ability to make one last pass to an open man with the clock expiring. They are also older than most players. The majority of the starting five are graduate students.
Their recruiting philosophy is very different. Interviewed after they won the championship for the second year, coach Hurley said, “We just recruit really talented NBA players that are willing to not make it about themselves, and to be part of a winning group, to go for all the championships.”
That observation says a lot and I’m not sure what it portends for college basketball. My fear is that we’re creating farm teams for the NBA.
Hurley’s sentiment is in sharp contrast to Purdue coach Matt Painter. Of the seventeen players on the Boilermaker roster, eleven are from Indiana. Only five of them are seniors. Painter recruits players for the long haul, helping them develop and fit into the roles the team needs (even moving some prior starters to the bench).
Part of the joy of watching Purdue play is to see that chemistry in action. If everything is cooking, there are few mistakes, and the other team has moments of struggle, you can compete against the NBA-bound team. That’s not what happened on Monday.
A lot of the attention was rightly focused on Zach Edey. Not only did he repeat as player of the year, but his performance during the tournament run drew comparisons to names like David Robinson, Ralph Sampson, and even Kareem Jabar. In spite of his excellent work, he still told the post-game press conference that he felt responsible for a scoring lapse early in the second half. It’s a lot of responsibility.
Going into Monday night, I wasn’t sure that Purdue could keep up with UConn. The first half was fun to watch, but I was still apprehensive. At least UConn’s margin of victory wasn’t as great as it had been in most of their tournament games.
It was a great season. In many ways, it made up for 1980 and 2022 and 2023. They were fun to watch and represented the university very well.
Hail, Hail, to Old Purdue Three Cheers for the Old Gold and Black. Hail, Hail, to Old Purdue. Her friendship may we never lack. Ever faithful, ever true, may we raise our song anew. Of the days we spent with you, all Hail, our Old Purdue.
Looking at Wikipedia, I found that he’s only four years younger than I am!
Earlier in his time at Purdue, my wife and I were shopping at the small independent grocery story in West Lafayette. I saw that Joe Barry was also in the store. At 7’, we watched him go by in the next aisle. (Store shelves were shorter then.)