After 3 Straight Losses, Purdue Embracing 'Us vs. Everybody' Mentality

The chatter about Purdue's recent slide has gotten louder, but Braden Smith says it's Purdue's job to block out the noise. After suffering a third straight loss on Tuesday night, he knows the Boilermakers have critics, but said the outside noise doesn't have an impact on the locker room.

Purdue suffered a 72-67 loss to Indiana at Assembly Hall on Tuesday night, falling to 7-3 in Big Ten play after winning its first seven conference games. A team that many thought was a lock to reach the Final Four suddenly has some questions to answer.

Smith said that everyone in Purdue's locker room is blocking out the noise and is taking on an "us vs. everybody" mentality.

"It doesn't faze us as a team or me individually because I know what I bring to the table and I know what our guys bring to the table," Smith said on his Running Point with Braden Smith podcast. "For me, it's just trying to help them understand that it really is just us. It's our group and our families who are together vs. really everybody at this point."

Purdue has lost consecutive games to UCLA, Illinois and Indiana, having chances to win all three. The Boilermakers led the Bruins by six points with 90 seconds to play. They held a lead on Illinois at the under-four timeout. Indiana was the only opponent in which Purdue found itself playing catch-up.

Purdue Boilermakers guard Braden Smith (3) dribbles | Jacob Musselman-Imagn Images

It's not as though Purdue has completely disappeared from the college basketball map. Mistakes late in games, especially on the defensive end, have really hindered the Boilers during this losing streak.

So, while the outside chatter might be expressing major concern about the Boilers' recent play, Smith said his team is ignoring that noise and banding together. When it reaches this point, it's all about Purdue fixing those issues to get itself back on the winning side.

"We could care less what anybody says, because it doesn't matter," Smith said. "We just had an hour meeting just talking about our identity and figuring out how we want to finish this year and what we have to do to do that. A lot of it is holding each other accountable and a lot of easy, fixable mistakes that we're making."

Purdue gets its next crack to end the losing streak on Sunday, traveling to College Park for a matchup with Maryland. Tipoff is set for 1 p.m. ET and the game will air on CBS.

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