Obviously that Purdue game was a gutshot. I thought Purdue had a puncher's chance at another S16, and to get bounced like that just hurts.
That said, there's a lot of missing context if you just look at a 4 getting upset by a 13.
The epitaph on this season reads: "Ahead of schedule"
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, was expecting Purdue to come into a stacked conference, finish 4th in the regular season, and be a 4 seed in the tourney.
Purdue fans were simply hoping to MAKE the tourney. 2019-20 looked to be on the wrong side of the bubble, with a few BTT wins probably needed to get Purdue into the dance, but it ended up being moot as the tourney was canceled.
- Then we lost Matt Haarms and Nojel Eastern to transfer, our only seniors.
- We missed on Hunter Dickinson and our consolation prize was a gigantic Canadian that found basketball late in life because he grew too tall for hockey and baseball, and then our other backup (Emmanuel Dowuona) missed the entire season for medical reasons.
- Our 4 spot was to be manned by Aaron Wheeler, a RS Jr whose previous season was highly underwhelming, and Mason Gillis, a RS frosh who hadn't played much competitive basketball in 2 years because of injury issues.
- That left a number of freshmen who we knew were going to play significant minutes out of necessity, and we just hoped they'd survive and learn.
And what happened? 4 of those freshmen won Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors, some multiple times. Edey was a force. Jaden Ivey looks like a game-changer. Gillis and Newman... Well they survived well enough to be consistent role players.
This team wasn't expected to do much... They dramatically exceeded those expectations.
So the season ended on a sour note... That sucks. It really sucks. But given the perspective, the season was more successful than any of us thought coming in. And the future looks VERY bright.