Tiebreakers caused Purdue to fall to 6th.
The Big Ten regular season ended today with Purdue in a three way tie for 4th place. Purdue tied in the standings with UCLA and Wisconsin. This is the 5th straight season where Purdue finished in the top four of the league. In all those years past it meant that Purdue would earn a double bye and not play until Friday in the Big Ten Tournament. Unfortunately for Purdue, this year the three way tie for 4th place did not do them any favors. Due to the three teams each having identical records against one another, and Purdue and Wisconsin going 0-1 against Michigan State while UCLA went 1-0 against the Spartans giving them the 4 seed. The next tiebreaker pitted Wisconsin against Purdue with the Boilermakers losing that head to head matchup 0-1 and so therefore the Boilermakers fell to the 6 seed in this week’s Big Ten Tournament.
I know that a lot of you probably view this season as a disappointment with Purdue not getting the Three-Pete and not getting the double-bye. All I’ll say is this, Purdue still finished in the Top 4 of the conference after losing a two time National Player of the Year, losing their starting center after one game and one minute, and losing a key piece after players were already on campus. That’s sort of incredible when you take a step back and look at it. I think sometimes we as fans and media are a bit too close to the situation to see how impressive it truly has been. Yes Kanon Catchings and Daniel Jacobsen were freshman, but they were freshman who were expected to play key roles and be key pieces on this team. Purdue would have been more successful this season if they had a center who could provide consistent rim protection even if he struggled a bit as a freshman. Purdue also would have really liked to have a player with Catchings length and athleticism. He was highly recruited and highly touted for a reason. Matt Painter wanted him on this team for a reason. It’s easy to look back on this regular season and say why didn’t Painter look to fill the holes that we’ve seen from this team, but the fact is he did fill those holes. He just lost one 41 minutes into the season with a broken leg and lost another one due to a last minute flake-out with no time to fill the hole. It’s an unfortunate reality that these things sometimes happen and there’s nothing you can do to plan for it.
There’s still two post-season tournaments to play and those will do a lot to judge the success or failure of this season. As I always say, it’s unfair to judge months of work just based on a few days in March/April but that’s the way the sport has evolved. We’ve seen this Purdue team be capable of beating the likes of Alabama while losing to Penn State. They still remain a mystery to me, but what I know is this: they are capable of beating anyone on any given night. Last season the expectations and pressure were so intense they could have crushed a lesser team, but last year’s team rose to meet those expectations and wound up in the NCAA Championship game. This season the expectations have lessened for sure, but the pressure is still immense as the calendar turns to mid-March. How will this team respond? I can’t wait to find out.