Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/223221
volume 24, EX 13 • dec. 5, 2013 Inside | Boilermakers beat BC 9-11 | Hummel Q&A 12–13 Football ends season 19–20 | Recruiting notes 33-34 Striving For Consistency Big win over Boston College a positive sign for Boilermakers after prior struggles BY BRIAN NEUBERT BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com M aybe Purdue's on the upswing. After a very disappointing showing in the neutral site portion of the Old Spice Classic — the Boilermakers lost two of three games, needing a second-half rally to salvage the one win — the Boilermakers righted their ship, so to speak, Wednesday night with an 88-67 win over Boston College, Purdue's fifth-consecutive win in the ACC/ Big Ten Challenge. The Boilermakers are now 7-2. The win came on the heels of three bipolar performances in Orlando, where the Boilermakers veered wildly from one extreme to the other from half to half in three consecutive games. All such issues went away from one night at least against the Eagles. "We put it all together (Wednesday)," freshman Kendall Stephens said. In Orlando, Purdue utterly melted down in the second half against a very average, to put it kindly, Washington State team, blowing a 10-point halftime lead and in one fell swoop turning its appearance in the Old Spice Classic into a wash. That loss was a bad one for Purdue and set these seemingly promising Boilermakers to a seventh-place finish in the eightteam event, that spot secured only after Purdue rallied from 13 down at the half to beat Siena for the second time in a week Sunday. After Purdue gave up a ridiculous 52 second-half points to the Cougars and came apart at the seams on offense en route to the crushing loss, Matt Painter and players uncharacteristically took roughly an hour to show up for their postgame press conference, something Purdue's never really done before. The obvious assumption that was made while tournament offi- THE Numbers 14.3 72.2 7-6 20 Increase in points per game for the men's basketball team through nine games compared to last year. Points opponents are scoring against the men's hoops team, compared to 59.9 points allowed per contest at this time last year. The men's team's overall record in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, while Boston College lost in the event for just the second time. Assists the Boilers had in 36 made field goals against Boston College. In the previous two games, the Boilermakers had just 14 assists and 26 turnovers. cials nearly called the press conference off was that Painter was busy making his feelings known to his team in no uncertain terms, probably not particularly quietly, in the locker room. That wasn't the case, though. "Nobody said a word," Davis said. "I don't think anybody talked the rest of the day. … We were down there for a while before Coach Painter talked to us and after he was done, everybody was Tom Campbell Terone Johnson, who had 18 points vs. Boston College, helped Purdue improve to 7-2 on the season, but the start has been filled with plenty of bumps. GoldanDBlack express • volume 24, express 13 • 1