What Happened to the Early-Season Version of Purdue Basketball?
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Two days in November stand out more than the rest when thinking about the potential this year's Purdue team possesses. Although it was only a few weeks into the season, the Boilermakers may have reached their zenith.
On the first night of the Baha Mar Championship on Nov. 20, Purdue played a physical Memphis team. The Tigers showed no fear against the then-No. 1 team in the country. Penny Hardaway's squad punched Purdue in the mouth in the first half, but the Boilers didn't roll over. Instead, they punched back.
Trey Kaufman-Renn and Oscar Cluff combined for 23 points and 18 rebounds. Fletcher Loyer poured in 20 and CJ Cox accounted for 18. Braden Smith had 12 assists. Despite finding itself in a physical 40-minute game, Purdue came out on top 80-71.
The next night, the Boilermakers flexed their muscles as the top-ranked team in the nation, obliterating No. 15 Texas Tech 86-56. They completely shut down JT Toppin and an explosive Red Raiders team.
After those two games, there was no debate that Purdue was the best team in the country. It was the squad Matt Painter assembled to bring a national championship to West Lafayette.
That was not the same team that took the floor on Sunday in Columbus. For 40 minutes, Ohio State outworked, outhustled and outperformed Purdue. The Buckeyes looked like a team desperate for a win. The Boilers appeared to just be going through the motions.
Painter said as much after suffering an 82-74 loss.
"Ohio State played harder than us," he said. "There's nobody out there who said, 'Ohio State was better, but man, Purdue played harder.' There's not one person, even some wrestler who doesn't know basketball, who is saying it. That's not been our deal through the last 50 years. That's not been our deal."
Since a 17-1 start to the season, Purdue has gone just 5-6 in its last 11 games. It has lost four games on its home floor, three of those in Big Ten play. A team projected to win the conference will be lucky to earn a triple-bye for the Big Ten Tournament next week.
Sunday's performance against Ohio State perfectly encapsulated the concern with Purdue's potential to make a deep postseason. Some nights, the Boilermakers play with a high motor and look capable of beating nearly anyone in the country. Other days, the team looks disjointed and uninterested.
Purdue was outworked in road losses to Indiana and Ohio State. However, the Boilermakers embraced the physicality and dominated the glass in an 80-77 overtime win over a top-10 Nebraska team.
Inconsistent is the best word to describe how Purdue is playing right now. The biggest problem? There aren't a lot of answers as to why the Boilermakers don't bring it every single night.
"If I knew what it was. I think it would already be done," Smith said. "I don't have an answer. I sit in my room, classroom, whatever it is, trying to figure it out. I don't know what it is."
Purdue looked dominant for two months
Through December, Purdue looked like the team everyone expected to see. It earned an impressive road win over a top-10 Alabama team, won another MTE, started Big Ten play 2-0 and blew Auburn out of Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
After 13 games, the 81-58 loss to Iowa State appeared to be the anomaly. It was chalked up as playing the wrong team on the wrong day. Those things happen in college basketball.
Plus, in the following game against Minnesota, Purdue responded with an 85-57 win over the Gophers. The Boilermakers played poorly in the first half, but used a 21-0 run to start the second to send Niko Medved's team back to Minneapolis.
Over the last 11 games, Purdue hasn't had the same level of urgency. We've seen it in different instances in the last two months, but it hasn't been consistent.
"It's gotta be accountability. If they're going to run the same stuff and do the same things, we gotta stay on the same page," Painter said. "And what's crazy is, we'll come in and out of it. We'll have two or three good possessions like that, and then we won't. We just need more consistency across the board.
"I wish it was one guy, I could fix it. It's not, it's collectively, as a team. It's guys who have played in 125 games and it's guys that have played in 28 games."
Somewhere, the Purdue team that stood up to Memphis, blew out Texas Tech and clobbered Auburn in the first two months of the season is still there. We've seen flashes of it recently: primarily in wins over Nebraska, Indiana and Iowa. This team remains capable of making a deep tournament run.
But it can't choose when it wants to play. This time of year, teams can't afford to flip the effort switch off and on. It doesn't work that way.
Purdue has two regular-season games and the Big Ten Tournament to figure it out. After that, any slip-up will be a disappointing end to a season that began with so much optimism.
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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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