For a second straight season, Purdue went into Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston with a No. 1 next to its name.
And for a second straight season, they exited with a loss, shocked yet again by Northwestern in a game script that looked all too familiar to the late-season struggles that doomed the Boilermakers last year.
It didn’t matter that Purdue won the rebounding battle by a massive 52–27 margin. It didn’t matter that defending National Player of the Year Zach Edey put up 35 points and 14 rebounds. And it didn’t matter that the Boilermakers took more than 40 free throws. Purdue’s guards were exploited defensively, the team turned the ball over in key moments and shot just 5–19 from three. The same recipe that burned the Boilermakers last year against Fairleigh Dickinson (and Northwestern, and Maryland, and the rest of that late-season swoon) got them again. And with that comes a reminder of the dark side of this Purdue basketball team, the same one that can beat three top-15 teams in three days in Maui can also get beat by inferior competition in one-off situations. That’s the flaw in how Purdue is built. While the ramifications of Friday’s loss are relatively minor beyond likely losing the No. 1 moniker, the blueprint laid in Evanston goes well beyond one game.
