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WEST LAFAYETTE – Purdue basketball players possess a vague understanding of the historic streak on the line Friday against No. 2 Alabama.
Not that coach Matt Painter hides it from them. He’s fond of pointing out senior Caleb Furst has never lost a nonconference regular-season game. In 38 nonconference regular season games stretching back to 2020, the Boilermakers have come out on top.
Painter also knows that winning streak holds its greatest value when it’s in peril. He and director of basketball operations Elliot Bloom built a schedule which threatens that streak, rather than protects it.
Case in point: No. 2 Alabama — a team whose bench Painter said could split off and be its own top-25 team — comes to Mackey Arena on Friday night. Two teams who played in the Final Four last March meet in mid-November because of what the game — win or lose — can mean for making another tournament run.
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“You learn a lot from every game, but you really learn a lot when you play elite people,” Painter said. “Everyone’s gonna have problems there. What are your problems, and how do you fix it?”
Purdue’s tough nonconference schedule does not begin Friday. It arguably started on opening night with a Texas A&M-Corpus Christi program which recently went to the NCAA tournament twice under former Boiler assistant Steve Lutz. Northern Kentucky is only one year removed from the tournament. Yale upset 4 seed Auburn in the NCAA tournament last season – its third trip in the past five seasons.
Not national powers, but also not glorified scrimmages to ease into the season.
Alabama stands out, though, even from the Boilermakers’ usual tough early season plan. The last time a nonconference opponent ranked this high visited Mackey Arena was the day it opened — Dec. 6, 1967. John Wooden’s UCLA team brought Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the No. 1 ranking to the new arena.
BOILER…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/no-2-alabama-embodies-purdue-122100749.html
Author : IndyStar | The Indianapolis Star
Publish date : 2024-11-15 12:21:00
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