Purdue Basketball NCAA Tournament Résumé: Post non-conference season

Periodically throughout Purdue men’s basketball seasons, GoldandBlack.com takes a look at the Boilermakers’ NCAA Tournament résumé, on-going projections and so on.

Here’s our first looking following the conclusion of non-conference play, as the 20th-ranked Boilermakers prepare to resume Big Ten play Thursday night at Minnesota.

Overall Record: 9-4
Non-conference record: 8-3
Big Ten record: 1-1
Home: 7-0
Road: 0-2
Neutral: 2-2

METRICS AND RANKINGS

NET: 37
AP: 20
Coaches: 22
KenPom: 27
Strength of Schedule (KenPom): 6
Sagarin: —
EvanMiya.com: 29

WINS AND LOSSES AND QUADS

Quad 1 victories
8 Alabama (home)
13 Maryland (home)
20 Texas A&M (neutral)
42 Ole Miss (neutral)

Quad 1 losses
1 Auburn (neutral)
12 Marquette (road)
32 Penn State (road)

Other notable wins
• N.C. State is not great this year and 103 in the NET right now, but it’s a major-conference win away from Mackey Arena.

Bad losses
None

WORTH NOTING

• The SEC is the best conference in America by far right now, and while Purdue’s résumé has been buoyed in past years largely by the Big Ten’s top-to-bottom strength, the SEC now helps the Boilermakers, who’ve played four ranked SEC teams, going 2-2 in those games. Those teams’ continued strength will help Purdue with both the computers and the human element even as Auburn, Alabama, Texas A&M and Ole Miss start taking losses once they begin playing one another, as well as Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky, Arkansas, etc.

• Of Purdue’s buy-game wins, there may not be any lead-balloon 275+ games on there. And some of those low- and mid-major teams Purdue beat will start padding their win totals once they start playing home games and get into their conference schedules. There won’t be good wins that come out of that mix, but there probably won’t be harmful ones either.

BRACKETOLOGY

• At the moment, projections-aggregator site BracketMatrix.com‘s composite has Purdue as the highest No. 5 seed.

• CBS Sports has Purdue tabbed as a 3 seed, opening NCAA Tournament play in Milwaukee (again). Purdue is the highest-seeded Big Ten team in Jerry Palm’s mock.

• ESPN’s Joe Lunardi puts Purdue as a 5 seed, opening in Seattle but playing through the Indianapolis Region.

• FanDuel currently has Purdue at +8500 to win the national championship.

BOTTOM LINE

• Purdue looks pretty certain to make the NCAA Tournament, with a chance at another solid, top-five seed. It doesn’t have the win total, nor the NET ranking or Big Ten strength quotient, it has had this time of year the past few seasons, but the Boilermakers are in solid shape by virtually every standard aside from those their own success lately created.

• Purdue needs road wins, with plenty of opportunities to come in January.

• The Big Ten may not be a deal this season where every road win is Quad 1 automatically, so a big one or two would come in handy. Oregon, Michigan, Michigan State and Illinois come to mind as highly likely Quad 1 opportunities.

• Purdue should want Texas A&M in particular to have a great year in the SEC and for Alabama and Ole Miss to look as good as possible come March.

• Strength of schedule is a big deal for Purdue. All of Purdue’s non-conference losses came to ranked opponents away from home. Losing to Auburn in Birmingham and Marquette in Milwaukee, those are as high-quality, forgivable losses as they come. That Purdue cleaned up the final scores a bit didn’t hurt.