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It all started with cheers at the introduction of the Ohio State entrances.
It was a strange show, but it was everywhere in the crowd and the opposite of the 2010 football match against Minnesota when Robbie Hummel's new injury spread through the crowd. Indiana followed the Michigan State for 38 minutes out of 40, but came back imposing 63 to 62 against Michigan. It meant that as we reported, Purdue was playing for first place in the Big Ten with two games to come.
The boilers have certainly seized the opportunity.
It seemed like we were going to have a match when Andre Wesson equalized at 7-7 with 15:01 to go in the first half, but then Purdue unleashed the fury. The Boilers scored five consecutive points on three points from five different players. Ryan Cline, Grady Eifert, Carsen Edwards, Evan Boudreaux and Aaron Wheeler all hit home. Carsen would finally get 19 in the first period and without Matt Haarms missing a free kick 51 seconds from the end, Purdue would have led at halftime with the same margin of 49-20 as he had beaten in Ohio State in October .
Let's say that the complete recovery of this team has been incredible. December 15th Purdue lost to a very bad team of Notre Dame 88-80 in a lifeless effort in Indianapolis. We sat at 6-5 after this game and I doubted we would even make the tournament.
Since the beginning of this year, I felt that making the tournament was a reasonable goal, but we had lost too much to participate in a difficult Big Ten. By mid-December, the situation seemed even worse. Purdue struggled and went to 0-4 in his four big non-conference games. With the Big Ten appearing superimposed, players like Minnesota, Nebraska and Indiana have even been in the top 25, missing the tournament probably began to appear.
Since that time, Purdue has had 16-2.
It has just been a different team in every aspect since. We used a few games without a conference against Ohio and Belmont to rectify things, and then we had a nice win against Iowa at home. Things really turned out after losing to Michigan State, then getting an overtime win in Wisconsin. I wrote how this extra time sequence saved the season, but that's what happened. It started a wonderful conference race where we only lost once. Today was a great example of how this has been done. We have an All-American, a great strong man, two senior leaders and everyone knows his role. How else do you explain that Boudreaux arrives and scores 6 points after barely leaving the bench for weeks? How about Wheeler and Eric Hunter Jr. who makes big games and scores for the first time in 9 games?
Here we are, at a game of at least a share of a record 24th conference championship. All we have to do is win one of the two remaining parties and one of them is in the last place of the conference.
What a reward for this team. These guys have been told in all seasons that what we lost was going to be too hard to overcome. Now they are 40 minutes from what the group last year could not do. It's nothing to envy last year's guys, who won a championship in their career and have done a lot. It's just a joy to see them largely overwhelmed.
And the two eldest, Ryan Cline and Grady Eifert, have a lot of merit. They are now leaving Purdue with a 63-4 mark at home, which means more home wins than any other Purdue class. They need two more wins to tie their career record, and they have just finished the third unbeaten home season of the Mackey Arena.
And, of course, there is Carsen. It may have been his last match in Mackey as well. He had 25 points, tied the season record 3 points with 100, then took a break for most of the second half. On Tuesday, he started waking up. Today, it was the classic Carsen and this paved the way for so much more. Everyone contributed and Purdue made his best basket in a few weeks. If there is such a thing as culminating at the right time, that may be it.
It will be an exciting week. We only need one match, and if we get breaks like Maryland beating Michigan and Michigan against Michigan, we do not even need that. I do not know what will happen in the NCAA tournament, but win a Big Ten regular season title in a year where most have chosen us to finish between 6th and 8th in fact an absolute success. Last year it was like a lost title because we were at a rebound. This year is a surprise title. Make it pretty cute.
We are two steps away.
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