Weekend thoughts: Big Ten Tournament and more

Express’ Three Thoughts from the Weekend column runs every Monday morning, with analysis of Purdue football, Boilermaker men’s basketball, recruiting, or whatever else comes to mind. In this week’s edition, Purdue’s stakes at the Big Ten Tournament, the role of freshmen and more.

ON THE BIG TEN TOURNAMENT

Purdue has a No. 1 seed wrapped up and earning the top overall spot doesn’t matter all that much since it will play through Indy either way. The Big Ten season is over and the conference has been won again.

Now as the focus turns to the NCAA Tournament, the topic of the Big Ten Tournament’s relevance crystalizes. the rest-and-risk-vs.-reward chat that takes place every year around this time, one that I doubt ever comes into play for those involved, just those looking on. Unless a team loses, then coaches will happily bring it up.

Anyway, Purdue is going to go all-out to win this thing, to unify the Big Ten championship belts for the second year in a row, as it should.

Purdue didn’t lose early last year because it played three games in three days. It didn’t almost go to the Final Four in 2019 because it got bounced in its first game. Three seasons ago, Purdue reached the finals, then played great in its first two NCAA games. It’s just not a thing.

If Purdue wore down last season, it was as much mental as anything. That was a young team. This one is not. Purdue closed this regular season — and closed games — looking as fresh and energized as it did in Honolulu.

These teams and opportunities don’t come often. Any championship that’s there to be won, go win it.

That doesn’t mean it’s a given or will be easy, but Purdue’s the best in the league, with a chance to prove it one more time with this particular group.

As I’ve said all season, Purdue is good enough that its standard ought to be itself, its own best, nothing else. That’s the standard, and when that standard is met, it is going to win. This is another chance to do that in advance of the biggest microscope this program has ever existed under.

AN OLD MAN’S BIG TEN

Here’s the Big Ten awards ballot I submitted Sunday.

You’ll noticed something new, but not really new, per se..

The first-team All-Big Ten has four seniors on it, three of them fifth-year players, and of the top 15 players, there are three sophomores and no freshmen. Some rando is going to make the All-Freshman Team by default, because in my view there were really only four worth voting for.

For a league that produced three NBA first-rounders as sophomores just two seasons ago and has some some of the most traditionally talent-laden programs in America, this was different.

The league this season belonged to those from the portal and the COVID super senior. The extra-year guys will filter out after next season, but the transfer market is going nowhere.

For a league long defined by continuity, let me point out that of the 15 players I voted on for All-Big Ten honors of some kind, seven transferred in, if not this season, then last. The league got old real fast, a bunch of teams cutting to the front of the chronological-age line as Purdue was building a team organically to be the grown-ups in the room.

That’s the landscape Purdue has won the past two Big Ten regular season titles against, by a combined half dozen games. There will come a time in the NCAA Tournament most likely when an opponent has three times as many 23-year-olds as the Boilermakers do.

This league is going to be this way every year. Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio State, etc., they’ll go recruit new teams every spring, and I’m not talking about high school seniors.

Yes, Purdue added Lance Jones this year, but this is going to be a program built on four-year guys and player development. Its scholarships are overbooked because that commitment to prep recruits, of which six are coming in.

Years will come when Purdue is young and everyone else is old, and they won’t all go amazingly like last season did. The March stuff overshadows how incredibly improbable the rest of that season was, with two freshman guards carrying immense responsibility and Zach Edey turning into an Avenger in his first season ever in his life as the best player on a basketball team, any basketball team.

All the more reason for Purdue to max out this window to the furthest degree. These opportunities don’t come along every year.

ON VULNERABILITY

Part of that standard mentioning above is the blueprint of vulnerability that has shown up at times this season for Purdue, in defeat, but also victory.

Purdue’s been a great shooting team all season, after a poor season a year ago in the context of its ability, with rock bottom coming at the worst time.

You never take any for granted when it comes to the fickle little devil that is jump-shooting, but Purdue has been so good, so consistent and so smart about it all season. At worst, this is a high-floor team when it comes to shooting.

It’s turnovers, though. When Purdue loses, or even when it’s credibly challenged, it’s turnovers, and the points they create for opponents. It is that simple.

If Purdue keeps the turnover number within reason, it can win the national title. If it doesn’t, it’s going to be vulnerable.