For a would-be conference favorite, the Purdue Boilermakers under Matt Painter sure aren't acting like it. First they dropped the conference opener at home to Illinois. And last night they went to State College and lost to Penn State.
And with their upcoming schedule, the Boilers could realistically be 2-5? Yikes.
There next five games are against Wisconsin, at Northwestern, Iowa, at Minnesota and at Wisconsin. They could realistically lose twice to Wisconsin and maybe at Minnesota and Northwestern. In that scenario, the Boilers would be happy for an NIT bid.
For whatever reason, I've seen much less of Purdue than I have of most other Big Ten teams, so I can't really comment on what is ailing the Boilers. Maybe it's a much-improved Big 10. Maybe it's that everyone is aiming for Purdue. Maybe they just aren't executing. Whatever the case, the Boilers are looking like anything but a title contender.
- Here we have Big Ten basketball power rankings from the Michigan student newspaper that has our Golden Gophers ranked #2. The writer cites the "complete team victory over Ohio State."
- A local paper in Illinois gathers Bruce Weber's thoughts on the Big Ten, and the focus of the column is the much-improved Big Ten. These are great articles to read.
- The Fort Wayne Journal discusses the coaching talent in the Big Ten.
- We haven't really discussed this here, but there are rumors that Tubby Smith is/was/might be a candidate for the Arizona coaching job. I'm not getting too worked up about this because Tubby seems fairly invested here
- J Money at Boiled Sports sums up my opinions on the college bowl season. That was a great game the other night between Texas and Ohio State, but what did it mean exactly?