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March 22, 2023

My wife Joan and I had our first date at a Purdue basketball game many moons ago, and we have watched just about every game we could in the years since.  Our respective approaches to a game are so different that we watch in separate rooms.  She berates.  I encourage.  At the end of the game, Joan looks for someone to blame.  I look for someone to console.

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Until Friday night, when #1 seed Purdue fell to #16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU), there was little need for consoling or blaming.  Purdue had enjoyed a storybook season.  Picked sixth in the 14-team Big 10 in the pre-season, and not ranked at all among the nation’s top 25, Purdue won 22 of its first 23 games and held the #1 spot in AP polls for weeks on end.  Among their wins was a three-game sweep of West Virginia, Gonzaga, and Duke in the Phil Knight Legacy Tournament in November.

More amazing still, Purdue beat each of these teams — the latter two ranked in top 10 — by a dozen or more points.  Although the Boilermakers stumbled a bit toward season‘s end, they won the Big Ten title by a whopping three-game margin; swept the Big 10 post-season tournament; and earned a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament before, alas, falling to Fairleigh Dickinson.

Tracking the media coverage of that final loss reminded me of just how venal and superficial sports journalism — and sports fans — can be.  Here are some sample headlines:

Purdue is the choke artist program of the decade after another March Madness implosion

March Madness: ‘Fire Matt Painter’ goes viral after Purdue upset

Is Matt Painter on the HOT SEAT??? Purdue is SHOCKED by FDU in the NCAA Tournament

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I write this not as a special pleading for Purdue or for coach Matt Painter, but as a reflection on college sports and the values of the fans that sustain them.  In a decade or so, I suspect, sports may be the only feature of university life that keeps their hosts viable.  Attention needs to be paid.

For the record, Purdue has made the NCAA tournament the last eight seasons.  In four of those seasons, the team reached the round of 16.  In 2019, only a fluke play at the buzzer kept Purdue out of the Final Four.  The team that beat them, the University of Virginia, had become the first #1 seed to lose to a #16 seed just the season prior.  After beating Purdue in the 2019 tournament, UVA, another solid program, went on to win it all.

What makes Purdue’s performance so consistently impressive is that Painter wins with college students.  I can imagine the players actually going to class with an intent to graduate.  At certain other institutions, college basketball has become more of a racket than ever.  The now wide-open “transfer portal” and the lure of NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals for players have expanded the possibility for corruption.

Purdue players are not immune to temptation, but watching them play this season was like watching the Hickory Huskers in the movie Hoosiers.  The team’s two starting guards were freshmen, both from Indiana.  At season’s end, four of the team’s five starters were Indiana kids, none of them transfers.  Among them, there was just one discreet tattoo, something of a modern record.

Throughout his eighteen seasons, Purdue coach Matt Painter has made a practice of finding overlooked players and training them up.  If each of Duke‘s five starters in the Phil Knight tourney was a top 50 pick coming out of high school, Purdue‘s highest ranked player was a #96, and Purdue won the Duke game by 19.

In 2020, Painter hit the recruiting mother lode when he offered a scholarship to the otherwise unwanted Canadian high school senior Zach Edey.  In 2020, Edey was ranked 436th in his graduating class, 76th among centers.  This year, the 7-4 junior was named National College Player of the Year.