Purdue has heard the jokes all year. Boilers plan to 'rewrite history,' get last laugh.
Gregg DoyelINDIANAPOLIS – Purdue’s not in the mood, OK? Oh, they’ll put on a happy face when the questions come about last year, when the Boilermakers … well, you know what the Boilermakers did last year. Went into the 2023 NCAA Tournament as a No. 1 seed, and left after the first round, sent home by 16th-seeded FDU. Here they are, one year later, a No. 1 seed again about to play 16th-seeded Grambling State, and everyone has questions.
The Boilermakers are getting through it. They knew it would be this way, the questions from reporters and the taunting from opposing fans and even the mean-spirited nonsense on social media. That was All-American senior center Zach Edey and sophomore shooting guard Fletcher Loyer at the podium Thursday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, where Purdue will play its 2024 NCAA tournament opener Friday, fielding questions about last season from ESPN and Sports Illustrated and other outlets.
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You know Edey, best poker face ever. He gets fired up when he dunks on someone, and he smiles preciously when opposing players try to show off by stepping into his space — knowing officials will get in the way before Edey can swallow them whole — but otherwise Edey shows nothing. He’s a mountain of a man, 7-4 and 305 pounds, but I like this for a nickname: Lake Placid. Anyway, he’s being asked about last season, and he’s giving nothing away, and the same can be said for Loyer minus this one moment:
Loyer’s just been asked about last season, and he answers it thoughtfully — “There’s nothing we’re looking past,” he says — but now the questioner is asking the same question of Edey, and Loyer cracks ever so briefly. He rolls his eyes, just for a moment, and the moment’s gone.
But it’s telling, that moment, and there’s more where that came from down the hall in the Purdue locker room, where the rest of the Boilermakers are dealing with the same questions and, without the cameras to record their every word, letting down their guard and showing how they really feel.
And they’re not in the mood.
Sportsbook: Which round will Purdue choke?
“It’s stupid (excrement),” Purdue senior forward Mason Gillis is telling me, and he’s not even mad about it. Just speaking his truth, and the truth of the whole locker room.
The nonsense out there after last season, equal parts glee and hatred — schadenfreude, you call that — isn’t hurting anyone at Purdue. If anything, it’s going to hurt 16th-seeded Grambling State on Friday night and then whoever waits Sunday in the Round of 32, Utah State or TCU, and on and on until the Boilermakers are in the Final Four in Phoenix and everyone can shut the hell up.
“We’re ready for this,” Loyer’s saying later, after walking away from the podium.
“We sat in it for a while,” senior guard Ethan Morton is saying in the locker room, paraphrasing something Purdue coach Matt Painter had said moments after that loss to FDU on March 17, 2023:
“We’ve got to sit in it,” Painter had said famously that night. “We’ve got to face it. We’ve got to deal with it.”
Purdue’s been sitting in it for 12 months, and while the outside reaction to the FDU game has never been pleasant, it has taken on a menacing turn in the days leading up to the 2024 NCAA tournament. On one prominent online U.S. sportsbook, one of the prop bets is how quickly Purdue is eliminated. Only, the prop bet uses another word. Here’s what it says:
Which round will Purdue choke?
At USA Today, of all places, a story titled “10 bold predictions for March Madness” starts with this at No. 1:
Purdue falters again, Matt Painter is out of a job
USA Today is my parent company, but it’s like Mason Gillis was saying: It’s stupid (excrement). And if you remember, Ethan Morton was saying “we sat in it a for a while” and kept going, talking about the 12-month journey to the same spot: First round of the NCAA tournament, seeded first, about to play a No. 16 seed.
“We could’ve won every game this season by 30 points,” Morton had continued, “and people would still be saying stuff like that.”
It doesn’t help that Purdue has lost to a double-digit seed in each of the past three NCAA tournaments: to 13th-seeded North Texas in the first round in 2021, to 15th-seeded Saint Peter’s in the Sweet 16 in 2022, and to FDU last season. Most of this roster hasn’t been here for all three of those games — only Edey, Morton and Gillis — but they’re all wearing the Purdue jersey.
They’re all sitting in it.
“We’ve become the bad guy,” Purdue sophomore point guard Braden Smith is telling me in the locker room, then starts quoting the mocking masses out there:
“Oh, Purdue always collapses in March.”
“Oh, Purdue can’t win in the NCAA tournament.”
“Oh, Purdue …” Smith doesn’t finish that one. He could keep going, but it’s like I’ve been telling you:
This bunch isn’t in the mood.
"We have a chance to rewrite history"
Matt Painter walks out of the news conference room with a smile on his face, his default setting. What else can he do? The questions are coming. He can get angry and give the little people out there what they want, or he can keep his cool and be the bigger person. And that, as I’ve said, is his default setting.
But he’s smiling on his way out when we bump into each other. I’ve been in the locker room, as you’ve noticed, so this is what I ask Painter about his first news conference of the 2024 NCAA tournament:
How many questions were about … you know?
“It wasn’t so bad,” he says, still smiling. “And I answered some of them before they could even ask. I kind of know where they’re going.”
It’s where everyone’s going this week, this month, until Purdue’s season is over — one way or the other. Virginia lived through something like this six years ago, after losing in the first round of the 2018 NCAA tournament as a No. 1 seed to 16th-seeded UMBC, and the Cavaliers came out the other side as national champions in 2019. They beat Purdue along the way, with something of a miracle basket in the final seconds of regulation in the Elite Eight, but never mind that. Virginia has been where Purdue is now, and thrived. That’s one reason former Virginia guard Kyle Guy, the 2016 IndyStar Mr. Basketball winner from Lawrence Central, got his hands on the phone numbers of Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith and texted them.
“I know how lonely it is,” says Guy, who has spoken of the crushing anxiety he felt in the wake of that loss to UMBC. “Hopefully my experience could help them see the bigger picture.”
The Boilermakers seem locked in, for sure. They are built differently than a year ago, stronger and more mature, and not just emotionally. Physically, this is a different Purdue team. The athletic ability on the perimeter is improved with the additions of Southern Illinois transfer Lance Jones and freshmen Cam Heide and Myles Colvin, but also Smith and Loyer are different, stronger. They’ve talked about the “freshman legs” they played with late last season, a very real adjustment — kind of like players hitting “the rookie wall” late in their first NBA season — that caught up to Michigan’s Fab Five in 1992 and to Kentucky’s freshman-dominated bid for perfection that fell short in the 2015 Final Four in Indianapolis.
Smith and Loyer are different, better, than a year ago, and they’re part of a ticked off locker room that has been waiting 12 months to get this nasty taste out of their mouth.
“It’s so stupid,” Loyer’s telling me, “the things people are saying.”
“I read that (stuff) and I hear that (stuff),” Gillis said, shaking his head.
“It can’t hurt us,” Smith’s saying.
“We have a chance to rewrite history,” Morton says. “How many people get the chance to rewrite history?”
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.