Hammering Down: One Matt Painter Preseason Quote That Stands Out After Purdue's 0-2 Start
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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — An audible silence filled Mackey Arena after Justus McNair's buzzer-beating three-pointer gently fell through the net. Valparaiso walked into one of the most intimidating environments in college basketball and stole a victory away from one of the most consistent programs in the sport.
The people inside Mackey Arena might have been silent after Valpo did a victory dance on Keady Court, but social media was anything but quiet. Shock was the first emotion, and frustration quickly followed.
Purdue is now 0-2, suffering losses to No. 15 Gonzaga and Valparaiso. There were signs of promise after a hard-fought contest against the Bulldogs on opening night. Those quickly flipped to concerns on Friday, and understandably so.
Right now, Purdue has shown some major deficiencies on both ends of the court. It's not fair to write this team off after two games, but wondering if these issues will linger throughout the season is warranted.
After the horn sounded and the final score read 83-80 in favor of Valpo, one of Matt Painter's quotes from the preseason dug its way back into my head. He compared this year's team to the 2018-19 squad, a group that struggled to find its footing early in the year.
"I kind of look at this as [2018-19], when we lost four starters and kept Carsen Edwards, then how we played," Painter said at Big Ten Media Days. "It just took us a while to get there. I hope it doesn't take us that long, but I liked the end results of that."
The team that Painter referenced at Big Ten Media Days began the year with a 6-5 record. Ultimately, that group came together. It won a conference championship and got within one second of a Final Four berth.
Purdue doesn't have a player comparable to Edwards on this year's roster. It just suffered a loss on its home court to Valparaiso, a team that the Boilermakers were capable of handling. So, while the comparison may have some flaws, Painter's general point still stands: this is a new team that is still going through some early growing pains.
The question we don't have an answer to, and won't know until much later in the season, is if this group is capable of figuring it out the same way the 2018-19 Boilers did.
It's far too early to press the panic button
For a program that has won at such a high level for the past decade, I understand the knee-jerk reactions following Friday's loss. It was an ugly performance against a mid-major program in front of a home crowd. On both ends of the court, some major flaws were exposed.
But it's way too early to write off a team coached by Painter and a roster with so much talent. Purdue isn't the first program to drop a game to a mid-major program and bounce back later in the season.
In the first year of the Baby Boilers (2007-08), E'Twaun Moore, Robbie Hummel, JaJuan Johnson, and the crew suffered a 69-66 home loss to Wofford. They followed it up with an 83-80 loss to Iowa State in the next game to drop to 7-4 on the season.
That team went 15-3 in the Big Ten, finishing second in the conference standings. The Boilers also reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
In the 2014-15 season, Michigan State dropped an unthinkable game to a 1-8 Texas Southern squad at the Breslin Center in overtime. The Spartans concluded that season with a trip to the Final Four.
Duke was stunned by Stephen F. Austin early in the 2019-20 campaign, losing 85-83 in overtime at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Blue Devils responded by finishing 25-6 and were a potential Final Four candidate if the NCAA Tournament had not been canceled that season.
None of this is to say that Purdue is going to instantly become a Final Four contender. It's not even to say that you can't be frustrated or upset with the performances in the first two games. All I'm saying is this: two games don't always define a 32-game season.
Give it a few weeks. It may sting now, but if these losses fuel something inside the Boilers, they may be viewed as necessary evils for success later down the road.
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Dustin Schutte is the publisher of Purdue Boilermakers on SI and has spent more than a decade working in sports journalism. His career began in 2013, when he covered Big Ten football. He remained in that role for eight years before working at On SI to cover the Boilermakers. Dustin graduated from Manchester University in Indiana in 2010, where he played for the men's tennis team.
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