A few weeks ago I asked the Purdue fans what they thought of their team and I was mildly surprised at the optimism in response.
I agree with @ELA . To be fair, I am (and I think he is as well) holding Purdue to a ridiculously high standard here but frankly they haven't looked as good as I expected.
They have played a tough schedule, the run in Maui was seriously impressive, and they are 20-2 so I'm certainly not saying that they are a bad team but . . . They have two losses to unranked teams and just beat unranked Northwestern at home in OT. As a fan of a dumpster 🔥, I assume my team WILL lose to Purdue but at this point I don't see that loss as substantially more certain than losses to UW and MSU.
In my many years of following Ohio State Basketball I've watched everything from train wrecks like this season and last to #1 seeds and even #1 overall seeds. I expected Purdue this year to look like the #1 seeds and maybe even like a #1 overall seed:
2010/11 Ohio State lost three games:
- At #13 Wisconsin
- At #11 Purdue
- Vs #11 Kentucky in the S16 in Newark
2006/07 Ohio State lost four games:
- At #6 UNC
- At #4 Florida
- At #4 Wisconsin
- Vs #3 Florida in the NCAACG in Atlanta
1991/92 Ohio State lost six games:
- At USC (in OT, by 2)
- Swept by Indiana #5 and #7
- At Seton Hall
- At Iowa
- Vs #15, a fabulous group of paid professionals cheating their way through the NCAA Tournament in Lexington, Kentucky
That is admittedly a REALLY high bar but that is what I expected out of Purdue this year and I'm not seeing it (maybe the 91/2 team but definitely not the other two).
You've seen that stat about top ten teams on the road against non-ranked teams this year though, right?
It is something like 40% win rate.
Top 10 Kentucky lost last night at home to 15-6 Florida.
3rd ranked UNC lost to a 10-11 GT team.
#5 Tennessee lost at home to a (admittedly pretty good) USC team.
Top 25 Memphis has now lost 4 in a row.
#8 Auburn lost to 14-6 Mississippi State.
#15 Baylor lost at home to 15-5 TCU.
#16 Dayton lost to 15-5 Richmond
#9 Arizona lost to 10-9 Oregon State
#10 Illinois lost at NW.
All of that in just the last 7 days.
Maybe it's a result of Covid and you've got some older-than-average teams out there. Maybe it's just a really big year for parity.
Whatever the reason, NOBODY has looked dominant this year.
Part of the problem for Purdue is perception compared to last year. I made this post a couple of days ago on another forum, so it is slightly out of date, but the information is generally still correct:
"
I'm not sure that they are really struggling more than last year. They are only one game worse than last year at this point.Looking at last year's schedule, up till this point they were 11-1 and they played the Big Ten ranked: 14, 11, 9 (L), 13, 10, 11, 4, 14, 6, 8, and 4. Only three games against teams in the top half of the Big Ten (and two of those were at home). The other teams they ended up losing to last year were ranked 2, 3, 3, and 6 (3 of those on the road).So far in this year, they've played: 4 (L), 8, 5, 3, 6 (L), 12, 7, 8, 14, 13, and 4 (tomorrow, which I suspect will be a win, NW revenge game and NW is much worse on the road). So, 6 games against teams in the top half of the Big Ten. Their two losses are against #4 and #6 on the road. Sure, we are only halfway through the schedule, so those rankings may change, but I don't imagine it will change much from what I have seen so far this year.So, Purdue had a much easier schedule on the front end last year.While there certainly could be an upset in there, I suspect the only other games they could drop this year will be @Wisconsin (#1) and @Ill (#3). Even if they drop a random road game (@OSU?), that would still have them end up with the same record as last year and pretty equivalent losses."
