Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/106140
f r o m e d i t o r b r i a n n e u b e r t get out of your own way pre-Big In over again.Ten play, Purdue beat itself over and In Big Ten play, sometimes, it's tried its best, but fortunately for the Boilermakers, failed. Purdue has won four Big Ten games now. In three of them, large leads quickly became notso-large, jeopardizing the precious Ws those games ultimately became. Maybe Purdue's young players — and its older players who too often act young — get bored. Maybe their impulse is to go for the jugular, not realizing its their own throats they're sometimes taking a blade to. Maybe they're just thrillseekers. Maybe their basketball sense is akin to most teenagers' nowadays attention spans: Minimal. Whatever it is, Purdue clearly hates prosperity, a hurdle in the maturation process this group keeps catching its back foot on. It would have made a great drinking game (milk, of course) this season to play off the number of times you've seen Matt Painter turn to his bench with that "What the (well, you know)" expression or rub his eyes in exasperation, looking like he'd just walked through a cloud of gnats. You can blame Painter if you want that his team sometimes plays in comeback mode when it's supposed to be playing prevent. I guess. Painter is telling his players what any of us could: When you have a lead, just be smart. No bad shots. No unnecessary risks. No free points for the opponent. Instead, in the most favorable of situations, Purdue has routinely taken bad shots and unnecessary risks and given free points to the opponent, whether it's been off bad fouls, turnovers or iffy shots that lead to easy baskets. It hasn't cost Purdue a game yet, at least not in Big Ten, but sooner or later it will. "You're at the end of January and you're a freshman and you've played a lot of minutes," Painter said after his team need- ed overtime to beat an Iowa team it shouldn't have needed overtime to beat. "You shouldn't be a freshman anymore. Understanding time and score and the shot clock … we're still take some (bad) shots at crucial times and that's not just younger guys. When it's maybe the most important possession of the game up to that point, we're having two or three of those the last four or five minutes of the game. We take a shot that's not playing to our strengths." Can it change now? Considering it's almost February, if it hasn't by now … Maybe it's the informality of year-round basketball at the high school level. Maybe it's just players now don't grasp the game as well. Maybe these particular guys are just a little hardheaded. I shouldn't single out this team. Opponents have much to do with it obviously. And it's been an issue at Purdue before. Ohio State won in Mackey Arena a few years ago after coming back from a significant defi- cit. Kansas was down a decent margin in the NCAA Tournament and won. But with this team, it seems like you can set your watch to it. Once a lead hits a certain level, look out. Purdue is going to be a good team. It's on its way. It might not be this year, but 13 20 ril 13, Ap register online nevertheless it's on its way. Problem is, more than midway through this season, Purdue's greatest adversary still seems to be Purdue. j Neubert can be contacted at BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com k n/wal 5K ru E THE C LLENG HA tm support cancer research at Purdue www.thepurduechallenge.com All proceeds beneet the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research GoldanDBlack express • volume 23, express 19 • 4