Express Word: The Purdue moment of 2024

The Express Word is GoldandBlack.com’s weekly opinion column, written by Brian Neubert. In today’s edition, the indelible image of Purdue’s 2024 sports year, the College Football Playoff and more.

THE MOMENT OF PURDUE’S YEAR

When you look back at the 2024 calendar year for Purdue, there were a ton of great, iconic moments, and a few that your gag-reflex may never let you forget.

But if I had to pick one that stood out about all others: It was this very small moment in time.

It was Player of the Year Zach Edey coming off the floor as the Tennessee game wound down and squeezing Final Four-bound Matt Painter like a tube of toothpaste while Rick Barnes gentlemanly waited Edey’s intrusion out before shaking Painter’s hand.

That moment had everything.

It was hilarious, for one thing, Edey’s raw joy leading to a bold breach of postgame-decorum protocol. When I saw it happen from about 15 yards away, I was reminded of a man whose giant dog just unexpectedly jumped on his lap. You pat it on the head and say, “OK, buddy.”

It was for lack of a better term, adorable, the dichotomy of a Star Destroyer of a player turning into a giant 7-year-old in the moment and reciprocating the genuine love of Edey that Painter could never really hide — nor should he have wanted to — when speaking about his star player.

It was distinctly human, and that’s one of the things I love about covering sports, the genuineness of it all that sometimes comes out for all to see, on live television. What you see is real. This was real.

More broadly, it was the elation of the moment perfectly embodied, but also the relief, the release of a generation of near-misses for one of the most basketball-minded programs in America, the relief of a team — and star player — that carried the weight of the world on its shoulders all season, yet expected this of itself, and got it done.

It was really something. That it happened just a few feet from the scene of the Isaac Haas elbow injury that deep-sixed one of Purdue’s prior cracks at the Final Four was almost poetic.

WINNING HAS TO MATTER

This is really a topic that seems only tangentially relevant to Purdue at this point, but considering the program at the heart of the point I’m going to make, you never know.

Despite what ESPN’s deeply compromised talking heads might tell you, Indiana deserved to be in the College Football Playoff.

Hopefully we can agree on that while also agreeing that if IU played a stronger Big Ten schedule, anything with a pulse in non-conference play, or certainly an SEC schedule, it’s not even in this discussion. Would IU have beaten a full-strength Alabama? Or Mississippi? Or even South Carolina? I think we can all agree on a probably not as the answer there.

But those teams all had their chances and lost games that turned out to be the difference between bride and bridesmaid when the CFP started handing out roses. Yeah, I wrote that.

Anyway, Indiana beat everyone except the teams it had no chance against, instead of losing to, let’s say, Vanderbilt and a mediocre Oklahoma team.

Winning has to be rewarded. It’s the only hard data we have.

Playing the hypothetical and personal-preference game just opens up way too much grey area. The “Who would beat who?” game is a Russian doll of questions for which there are no answers. It’s the same subjective landscape the basketball selection committee deals with every year, the difference being that they’re deciding on the lowest-seeded bracket filler; the CFP is choosing who gets to play for a national title.

You have to reward winning.

Indiana won. Google it.

It was never a true title-contender team, but nevertheless it got what it earned.

In the event Barry Odom moves mountains and parts seas and goes 11-1 next season, here’s guessing you’ll agree with me.

RANDOM THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK

• Something I’ve thought about some as recruiting inevitably changes profoundly: Why don’t players switch positions anymore? Maybe I have tunnel-vision since I’m focused on Purdue, but I just don’t feel like you see it as much anymore. Citing the Joe Tiller Era anymore is hardly relevant because that was so long ago, but there are instruction manuals there to be found. Danny Hope, too.

It’s hard to recruit good, physically ready offensive linemen at Purdue. Why did all these recent coaches not go find giant tight ends or athletic, tall and long defensive ends to try to make into offensive tackles? Why aren’t big high school running backs coming to college as linebackers anymore? Why aren’t athletic high school quarterbacks being recruited as safeties?

If you’re creative and open-minded and development-conscious as coaches, there are opportunities there all over the place if you’re willing to take shots and put time into players. Maybe that’s not practical anymore, or maybe it’s even more practical now.

(This came to mind years ago, but came back to mind last week when Purdue signed a 6-8, 290-pound tight end.)

• Quick reminder that though Purdue was not a good football team, a particularly talented football team or a well-organized football team, you gotta admit, that schedule was the damn Grim Reaper, as the CFP has reminded in no uncertain terms.

Penn State is two wins deep. Notre Dame is absolutely a contender. And the Oregon-Ohio State sequel might be the de facto title game. Indiana got tossed from the field like a banana peel from a speeding car, but did earn its spot and should feel no shame in getting handled by a far superior team in a true road game.No, Purdue shouldn’t have lost to those five teams by a combined 10,843-10, but it shouldn’t have had much of a chance against any of them, either. It’s remarkable that Purdue can say it lost to 42 percent of the Playoff field.

• Daniel Jacobsen wasn’t going to be ready to really transform Purdue right away, but as things have played out it is very clear that his absence is really being felt. He woudn’t be a focal-point offensively, but he’d be good for six points a game probably off of putbacks, free throws and a three or two a month. He’d get three or four rebounds a game that no one else could reach and keep alive a feww more that maybe a teammate could get.

And there’s no telling what his height and length would mean for Purdue defensively as a deterrent in the lane.

I don’t know if Purdue’s record is any better with Jacobsen but its team, clearly, would be.

• Why do people get New Year’s Day off? The one day a year where we ought to be shot out of a cannon to be productive, we sit at home? Make it make sense.