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GoldanDBlack express • volume 24, express 28 • 5 tory in the last month of the season, even doing so against odds. Purdue fought back from a double-digit second-half def- icit at Michigan, then a game later trailed by 16 at the half vs. Iowa, only to rally once again. "I didn't know what to ex- pect," assistant coach Nadine Morgan said, looking back on Houser's injury. "It was one of those things where we could respond and be awesome, like we were, or it could have gone completely the other way. It was great to see that it went that (positive) way." In winning all six, Purdue got contributions from nearly the entire roster, from Court- ney Moses stepping up her scoring, to April Wilson taking over some of the missing lead- ership, to Hayden Hamby and Ashley Morrissette, two less fre- quently used guards, hitting big shots. Although Purdue, which won 22 games, didn't have the postseason it planned — the Boil- ermakers lost in their Big Ten Tournament open- er, then in the second round of the NCAA — its surge after Houser's injury showed its character. "For us to come back, it just shows how much fight this team has because we have been through so much," assistant Lindsay Wisdom- Hylton said. "That whole fight in us is really what led to overcoming all that." — Kyle Charters No. 3: TakiNg a Break Every season since 1946, Purdue has faced in-state rival Notre Dame on the football field. That annual battle will soon come to an end. In mid-December, the schools announced a new agreement that includes a five- season break from 2015-2019; only one game remains — the 69th consecutive — until the hiatus, when the two schools play in primetime on Sept. 13 in Lucas Oil Stadium as part of Notre Dame's neutral field Shamrock Series. After playing in 2020 and 2021, the series will take an- other break the next two years, then the teams will rotate home-and-home in '24 and '25 before a neutral site game in 2026. The departure came due to a complex set of scheduling scenarios, including the Big Ten's expansion and impending move to nine-game schedules, along with Notre Dame's association with the ACC and its apparent desire for a more national slate. "Both of us respect the tradition," Purdue AD Morgan Burke said of he and ND athletic director Jack Swarbrick. "I think this was our way of trying to say, 'Look, we're going to continue to play on a periodic basis but an annual game is not going Paul Sadler A.J. Hammons' game still has room to grow, and, to Coach Matt Painter's relief, the 7-footer will do it at Purdue. Hammons' decision to return to the Boilermakers for his junior sea- son was critical. 2