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Gold and Black Radio: Purdue-Sweet 16 and Indy talk and more

Karpick_headshot500x500by:Alan Karpick•about 16 hours•

AlanKarpick

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Gold and Black Radio

Host Derek Schultz and GoldandBlack.com men’s basketball expert Brian Neubert hash out Purdue’s trip to Indianapolis to play No. 1-seed Houston in the Midwest Regional Semifinal aka Sweet 16.

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ON PURDUE’S NCAA TOURNAMENT OUTLOOK

excerpt from Brian Neubert’s Three-Thoughts column

I know Purdue’s program at this point takes a backseat to very few like it and should be considered an underdog story basically never, but the term “house money” does come to mind as the Boilermakers prepare to meet No. 1 seed Houston at Lucas Oil Stadium right around the time “The Tonight Show” comes on Friday night.

For years, I’ve felt like of every great team out there, the one Purdue should want no part of is Houston, because Kelvin Sampson, in my opinion, might be the best coach in college basketball and turns out the same team with same demeanor every single year. The way they guard, they way they bring guns to knife fights, it’s a different level from any of the elite teams Purdue’s run through the past several years.Skip Ad

That they lead college basketball in three-point shooting this particular season too is another layer of oof.

Make no mistake here, folks: Purdue is a considerable underdog this weekend. It may not ever view itself that way, but it is. When was the last time KenPom only gave Purdue a one-in-four chance to win?

But whatever happens Friday, Providence did serve as Purdue tying this season off as success, with a sixth trip to the Sweet 16 season out of eight chances. That’s really something, and this is one of the remaining programs out there where you build up to things. Barring anything I’d call a surprise, the core of this team should remain intact next season, a foundation perhaps for another silver-bullet sort of season next year. Success now echoes into November and those months that follow.

Purdue’s already hit a marker by making the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, an accomplishment that shouldn’t be dragged just because it only had to beat two low-major buy-game programs to do it.

First off, that’s why they seed the tournament, to give favor to those who earned it. Second, blame Clemson for losing to McNeese (or TCU to Utah State last year). Third, view teams for what they are, not the number next to their names. High Point and McNeese State both came into this event having unleashed hell on their conferences, conditioning themselves exclusively to win. Those are dangerous teams this year of year, as Purdue well knows.

Would you rather play boring, unremarkable Clemson, with its record bloated by a bad ACC, or the energized, swaggy, irrationally confident bunch of second-chancers who fear nothing? That’s what this time of year is all about, the fact that anything can happen and very little is as it appears on paper.

Purdue will hope to be on the right side of such a surprise Friday night.

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