It's Final Four or bust for Purdue. Can the Boilermakers finally overcome their March Madness woes?
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Purdue spent eight weeks of this regular season as the No. 1 team in the USA TODAY Sports men's college basketball poll, never falling lower than No. 4, and became the first team since Ohio State in 2006-07 to repeat as regular-season champions of the Big Ten.
Now sitting at 29-4, one win away from tying the program's single-season record set in 2017-18, Purdue is surging into the NCAA men's tournament as one of the teams to beat for the national championship. Those victories include nine against opponents ranked in the poll on Selection Sunday, including No. 6 Tennessee, No. 8 Marquette, No. 9 Arizona and No. 10 Illinois.
This has earned the Boilermakers a spot on the No. 1 line in the tournament for the second year in a row and a matchup on Friday night against No. 16 seed Grambling (7:25 p.m. ET, TBS).
Almost every sign is pointing toward the Final Four. But it’s never that easy for Purdue.
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In addition to taking on Connecticut, Houston and the other top contenders for the national championship, the Boilermakers head into Friday battling with one of the spottiest postseason track records in the Power Six. The program's inability to go deep into the tournament despite extended periods of regular-season success is one of the biggest headscratchers in college basketball, casting Purdue in the unfortunate role as perennial postseason underachievers.
“You want to fight to get back where you were,” coach Matt Painter said. “And we’re fighting to get a little bit better than we were.”
Final Four or bust for Purdue
For the 2023-24 Boilermakers, it’s Final Four or bust. The team is constructed to do just that.
Purdue is led by 7-foot-4 center Zach Edey, the Big Ten leader in points, rebounds and field goal percentage. The senior is aiming to become the third men's player to be named Naismith College Player of the Year multiple times, joining Bill Walton and Ralph Sampson.
The Boilermakers returned all but two players who averaged at least 11 minutes per game a season ago and added a key transfer in former Southern Illinois guard Lance Jones, one of four players in double-figure scoring.
“It’s new to me, but it’s like routine for them,” said Jones. “We’re going to go out there with the right mindset, playing to the best of our abilities and trying to win the championship.”
According to KenPom.com, Purdue ranks second nationally in adjusted efficiency margin, second in offensive efficiency and 21st in defensive efficiency while playing the nation's third-toughest schedule.
One area of incredible improvement from a season ago has been Purdue’s shooting from deep. Last year’s team made just 32.2% attempts from 3-point range, 291st nationally. The Boilermakers now head into the tournament making 40.8% of 3-point attempts, second in the country.
The Boilermakers also expect to benefit from one of the toughest schedules in Division I, from the high-profile non-conference matchups through the 20-game Big Ten slate dotted with ranked competition.
“You schedule up, and now that gives you a better chance,” Painter said.
This is simply a more experienced team, and one seemingly better equipped to handle the pressures of March Madness. After starting two freshmen in the backcourt last season, this year’s roster enters tournament play with a combined 400 career starts with the Boilermakers; the number of career starts increases to 513 when including Jones’ previous four years at Southern Illinois.
“This year we know who we are, we know what type of team we are, and we know what we can do,” Edey said. “I think, when you take a loss … like this year, it doesn't shake us at all. We stay true in what we believe, and what we believe in ourselves, and that's kind of like that veteran presence of being kind of through a full season as a team together.”
Lingering pain of Fairleigh Dickinson loss remains
It's been just over a year since the Boilermakers joined 2018 Virginia as the only No. 1 teams to lose to a No. 16 seed. The latest but most painful footnote among the program's catalog of postseason flameouts, the shocking embarrassment of that 63-58 loss to Fairleigh Dickinson has led another banner regular season to be viewed with a degree of eye-rolling skepticism.
"I don't think it will stay with me through the year," Painter said at Big Ten media day in October. "I think it will stay with me forever. I wish it didn't, but I think that's part of being competitive. I think that's part of coaching."
The historic loss to Maryland-Baltimore County was the prologue to the Cavaliers' national championship the following season. With a loaded roster and ample experience, Purdue must unlock the same code to go from the unfortunate side of history to the top of the sport.
That has meant walking a tightrope: Painter and the Boilermakers have tried to tap into the natural motivation found in last year’s historic exit while staying focused on the Big Ten crown and the task at hand – a balancing act nearly without precedent in Division I history.
“They’ve had to deal with it,” said Painter, who is 442-202 as Purdue’s head coach since replacing Gene Keady in 2005. “It’s not three years ago. The noise is there. Use it as motivation. Don’t ignore it.”
Scar tissue of past NCAA Tournament disappointments
If the obvious low point in Purdue’s tournament history, the loss to Fairleigh Dickinson is joined by decades of regular-season success followed by failures in postseason play.
Purdue has now reached the tournament 15 times under Painter, with all but four of these previous trips coming with the Boilermakers seeded on one of the top five lines.
The Painter-era Boilermakers made one trip to the Elite Eight, losing in overtime to the Cavaliers in 2019, and have been bounced in the first round four times, losing as a No. 9 (Cincinnati in 2009), a No. 5 (Arkansas-Little Rock in 2010), a No. 4 (North Texas in 2021) and a No. 1. Purdue also failed to advance out of the opening weekend in 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2012.
“Purdue fans have the trauma, I guess would be the word, from bad things happening,” said Big Ten Network analyst and former Purdue forward Robbie Hummel. “The sentiment that something will inevitably go wrong is very real, I think, with Purdue’s fan base.”
Overall, the program has made the tournament 35 times, tied for third most in the Big Ten behind Indiana (41 appearances) and Michigan State (37). These bids have resulted in five Elite Eight appearances and two Final Four berths, in 1969 and 1980. Purdue’s one national championship, in 1932, came during the pre-tournament era and was recognized retroactively.
Getting back to the national semifinals “would be validation at the highest level,” Hummel said.
Purdue's unmatched Big Ten success
These postseason stumbles belie a run of regular-season success that places Purdue in the elite upper crust of college basketball.
No Big Ten program owns more conference championships than the Boilermakers’ 26, with five coming under Painter. Purdue owns winning records against every Big Ten opponent, including a combined 417-312 mark against Illinois, Indiana, Michigan State and Wisconsin.
Purdue has entered a new stratosphere during the past three seasons, a run that in several respects in unmatched in Big Ten history.
The Boilermakers are the first Big Ten team to reach No. 1 in three consecutive seasons. In addition to being the first to go back-to-back since Ohio State, Purdue is the first to win the league by three or more games in successive seasons since Indiana in 1975-76. The Boilermakers and Houston are the only teams to win at least 29 games in each of these three years.
The program has been ranked in the top five of the Associated Press poll for 35 weeks in a row, nearly double the nation’s next-longest streak (Connecticut with 18). That streak is the third longest in Big Ten history, trailing Ohio State (41 weeks from 1960-63) and Indiana (38 from 1975-77).
“They’ve been on this incredible run,” Hummel said. “But that’s kind of the standard that this senior class for Purdue has set. Those guys have done a wonderful job taking a program that was in really good shape and leaving it better than when they got there.”
All that’s missing is a tournament run. A Final Four appearance alone would rewrite the narrative that has defined Purdue for decades — but the Boilermakers have their sights on something even bigger.
“I just want to win championships,” said Edey. “Championships convey something. That’s the biggest thing. I think whenever you have the opportunity to win a championship, you want to capitalize on it.”