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GOLDANDBLACK EXPRESS • VOLUME 25, EXPRESS 24 • 2 basketball right now and we're go- ing to be confident regardless of who we play." Purdue has reason to be after being the surprise team of the Big Ten this year and maybe one of the biggest in college basketball. Again, this was a program that fielded a 12th-place team a year ago, but one that has now shown more maturity than past teams and improved exponentially defen- sively, probably the biggest driving force behind the turnaround. "I think our team really bought into what Coach (Matt) Painter was saying," Stephens said. "I think this team really understands what Purdue basketball is about and just has more pride in how we play and how we conduct ourselves. I think that's what really changed from last year to this year." The work is far from over, though. There's a good chance Purdue could drop its Big Ten Tournament opener and still make the NCAA field, but there are no guarantees. Any feeling among Purdue play - ers that they've made it would be profoundly premature. Most pro- jections still have the Boilermakers living on tenuous ground. The best way to settle any such worries is the same as it's been all year: Win. At least one more time. "As Coach Painter always says, 'We're not in the business of select- ing. We're in the business of play- ing,' " Edwards said. "We don't determine any of that. We just go and play ball." That's what Purdue says it's been doing all season and that won't change now that the postsea- son has arrived. "Every game in the regular season was the most important game of the season," forward Basil Smotherman said. "Every time we broke the huddle, we'd say, 'This is the most important game of the season.' It is. We don't look ahead to the next game but always focus on the game we're on and that's what we're going to do before Friday. It's a big game and there's a lot at stake. I think we're ready for it. "Everybody's just focused. We've been focused since the first day of practice." j Weekly Pic Tom Campbell Coach Matt Painter poses with son Brayden and daughter Emma moments after the senior day festivities came to a close. Brayden expressed his sentiment about the seniors with his sign. ANOTHER REASON WHY THE BOILERMAKERS (LIKELY) WILL BE DANCING Listed below is the percentage of Big Ten teams invited to the NCAA Tournament since 1985 — when the NCAA expanded to 64 teams. It's now at 68. In 22 of 30 years, more than half of the league schools earned an invite. If history is any teacher, the Boil- ermakers are in good NCAA shape with their 12-6 league mark as they have one of the seven best records in the Big Ten. Percentage of NCAA-qualifying teams Number of occurences 70% 3 times 60-69% 6 times 50-59% 13 times 40-49% 6 times 30-39% 1 time 20-29% 1 time The pie chart shows number of Big Ten teams likely to qualify in a given year. 70 % 60-69 % 50-59 % 40-49 % 30-39 % 20-29 %