My wife Joan and I had our first date at a Purdue basketball game many moons ago, and we have watched just about every game we could in the years since. Our respective approaches to a game are so different that we watch in separate rooms. She berates. I encourage. At the end of the game, Joan looks for someone to blame. I look for someone to console.
Until Friday night, when #1 seed Purdue fell to #16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU), there was little need for consoling or blaming. Purdue had enjoyed a storybook season. Picked sixth in the 14-team Big 10 in the pre-season, and not ranked at all among the nation’s top 25, Purdue won 22 of its first 23 games and held the #1 spot in AP polls for weeks on end. Among their wins was a three-game sweep of West Virginia, Gonzaga, and Duke in the Phil Knight Legacy Tournament in November.
More amazing still, Purdue beat each of these teams — the latter two ranked in top 10 — by a dozen or more points. Although the Boilermakers stumbled a bit toward season’s end, they won the Big Ten title by a whopping three-game margin; swept the Big 10 post-season tournament; and earned a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament before, alas, falling to Fairleigh Dickinson.
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