Express Thoughts: Boilers bounce back, the Big Ten race and more

GoldandBlack.com’s Express Thoughts from the Weekend column, with analysis of Purdue football, Boilermaker men’s basketball, recruiting, or whatever else comes to mind.

BACK IN THE HUNT

After Purdue’s totally random and completely unexplainable second-half vanishing against Ohio State — seriously, what in the world could that possibly have been about?  — cost the Boilermakers a stroke against par in the Big Ten championship race, the reigning champions re-asserted themselves in a big way with an absolute rout of Michigan, consistent with their prior nukings of Northwestern and Nebraska in Mackey Arena. The Michigan game was what it’s supposed to look like, making that final 20 minutes vs. a pedestrian Ohio State team a complete mystery that undoubtedly had nothing to do with it being Game 5 in 13 days played three days after a return from the Pacific Northwest. Absolutely nothing to do with it.

Anyway, that horse isn’t just dead; it’s decomposed now, and there’s no going back. But Purdue still has to get that loss off the books by getting its momentum back and stringing together wins, and Michigan may have been the start of just that happening. The circumstance-caused loss to Ohio State put Purdue in a bit of a tough spot to keeping up with Michigan State in the league race before the Spartans encounter its own schedule strife starting in February.

But one thing was made clear on Friday night: Purdue’s seven-and-a-half games prior to halftime vs. the Buckeyes, that’s Purdue and that might be the best team in the Big Ten. That Purdue team is still a decent bet in the Big Ten race, however watered down these championships are now. Purdue’s got a great shot here, not just because Purdue’s really good at both ends of the floor, but because of what Michigan State has lying ahead and because of what the rest of the Big Ten now looks like.

Weeks back, Michigan and Oregon looked like factors in this race, and obviously Illinois had to be taken seriously. Now, the Illini sit with four losses already. Oregon, too. Forget them. The wheels haven’t quite come off for Indiana yet, but the tires are shredded, bolts are rattling the roughest road still lies ahead.

And Michigan?

Well, I’ll admit: They were disappointing on Friday night. I figured they’d really give Purdue a run, but instead I’m wondering how good they actually are. Purdue blitzed them to the point that I’m not sure anyone would have fared much better, but the Wolverines were sloppy in their execution, not terribly physical and their guards didn’t look championship-contender-caliber.

Not sure they’re going to endure as a factor here, and if they don’t, that leaves Michigan State and Purdue, with the Spartans two games up, with all their toughest games and most their three-day turnarounds — Purdue just had five straight — lying ahead of them.

Purdue’s positioned itself OK here but will need some help. It only gets the Spartans once, so somebody else is gonna have to help them.

The good news is Purdue got its schedule meat-grinder out of the way in January, and now gets some meaningful decompression time and meaningful practice time, a respite from constant crash-course mode. The Spartans will have a whole extra month’s worth of tread on their tires when their bottleneck comes. That’s what it will come down to.

ON BRADEN SMITH

The past two games were a nice, boiled-down version of Braden Smith‘s eventual Big Ten Player-of-the-Year résumé, because it was all there, notably the stark difference in outcomes when he doesn’t have his legs under him and his mind sharp vs. when he does.

It was all there vs. Michigan. The offense, the command, the defense and the clear reminder of how his energy, for better and worse, is his team’s energy and his home arena’s energy. There’s not a player in the league more important to his team, there’s not a player in the league wielding more influence over outcomes and there’s a better player.

Purdue has out of nowhere become a borderline dominant defensive team, one out-of-body-experience of a half aside, and that’s the backstory to the difference-making element of the game for Purdue lately: Points off turnovers.

Consider how much Smith has meant to creating the turnovers and then creating the points off of them and you get a peek into how this player has not only led his team, but kind of transformed it.

Considering how much winning may/should matter with this particular award, who’s Smith’s main competition right now? I’m not sure Michigan State has that one guy.

But that’s the most important part: Purdue has to win. A lot.

ON PAST MEETING PRESENT

The story of Purdue’s season to date has been its coming of age defensively in-season, a really shocking development for a program that’s been winning with offense for years now and, realistically, just needing to be good enough on D.

Friday night was the starkest illustration of what Purdue’s become, because all those turnovers Purdue was getting before — Oregon, for example — those were system turnovers, the products of help and process and the Boilermakers just outsmarting offenses, laying traps, really.

Friday night was just Purdue forcing the issue, taking the ball from Michigan and applying a level of pressure unseen probably since Chris Kramer, Keaton Grant, JaJuan Johnson, etc.

The game has changed to a certain degree, and Purdue has changed with it, but the Michigan game and the discomfort oozing off the Wolverines as CJ Cox, Gicarri Harris and Myles Colvin put their guards in the microwave and Smith wrought his usual chaos harkened back to the old days.