3/10/2025 Boilermaker Water Cooler Chat: Second Season Edition
Rants, ravings, and somewhat sensical opinions following the wild, wacky, and wide-wide world of Purdue sports.
Whelp, folks, the regular season is over. Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess! Now, as the calendar turns over to March (the maddest of months) the end of the regular season is ever present. Now, we enter the second season.
The Games:
Rutgers 71, #18 Purdue 100
A tight game for about 15 minutes led to a complete route as Purdue shot the lights out of the ball.
Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer each had 23 points, they each had 7 three pointers made. Trey Kaufman-Renn pitched in 16. Everyone on the roster got some minutes, and the Boilermakers crossed the century mark! What more can you ask for? Also, free fries!
Purdue – Rutgers Photo Gallery by Mark Elsner: https://iscpurdue.com/purdue-mens-basketball-vs-rutgers-3-4-25/
#18 Purdue 80, Illinois 88
Purdue was the better team for the majority, but wet their pants down the stretch. Illinois didn’t.
TKR led the way with 29 points, Braden Smith was a rebound shy of a triple-double with 18 pts, 9 reb, and 12 assists. Fletcher Loyer added 14.
Purdue – Illinois Photo Gallery: https://iscpurdue.com/purdue-mens-basketball-illinois-3-7-2025/
Break It Down:
Purdue had another mixed week when they really needed some positive momentum. While the Boilermakers have been losing a ton of games lately, at least they have been against talented teams. Unfortunately, with a 13-7 record the Boilermakers were nowhere near where they wanted to be. While according to the standing Purdue technically finished tied for 3rd, the tiebreaking scenarios Purdue garnered the #6 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. The first time the Boilermakers haven’t achieved the double-bye.
You can always look back and think “what if?” when it comes to a season. What if Purdue didn’t blow it against Penn State? Ohio State. Wisconsin. IU. Indiana. Michigan. All games where Purdue was in position to, or should have won, and let them slip away. What if?
Asking what if doesn’t matter. Just as time flies when you’re having fun, time is inevitable. Crunch time is inevitable. This week, Purdue didn’t handle crunch time. The Boilers need to dig deep, because the games mean more in March.
What Went Well:
- Braden Smith: Continues to have a monster season. This week he averaged 20.5 points, 10.5 Assists, and 7 rebounds. Just seems to be par for the course for this young man!
- 50%: From three against Rutgers on 36 attempts is an incredible clip. This was the first time in Purdue history that two separate players (Smith and Loyer) have hit 7 threes in a game.
- Offense in General: This week Purdue averaged 90 ppg, and only 8.5 turnovers. The trend of being one of the top 10 offenses in the nation continues.
Opportunities for Improvement
- Crushed: … in crunch time. Boilermakers were not up to the task while leading Illinois with 2 minutes to go, they completely fell apart, letting the game slip away.
- 6: The maximum number of fouls allowable to be called in Purdue’s favor, on the road, per half. Despite TKR shooting 23 attempts, with multiple other players driving to the hoop regularly, Purdue only hit the 1&1 for the final 16 seconds of the game. Somehow, this has happened over, and over, and over (and over) this season. When Purdue loses games, keep your eye on the 6th foul.
- Look at Me!: Jeffrey Anderson… High Knees, as he is known throughout college basketball, seems to be addicted to the spotlight. Every single game that he is involved with, he makes a bombastic call, tangentially related to being the correct call at best, completely wrong at worst (but most common). He does it with all the showmanship possible. He wants all eyes on him. This week, Myles Colvin jammed home a very disrespectful alley-oop at Illinois. Without hesitation, Anderson high-kneed his way into the frame to give a technical. Why? Because, in his opinion, Colvin hung on the rim a bit too long, pulled the rim a bit too taught, dunked the ball a bit too strongly. Something that was no different than your average dunk, especially considering that there was an Illinois defender in his area. This call turned the momentum for the game. What was a nasty, momentum filled, insulting dunk which shut the crowd up and gave Purdue a 9 point lead. Anderson’s incorrect call zapped all the momentum from it. From that point, Illinois caught right back up. Is this why Purdue lost? Absolutely not. But it did directly affect the momentum of the game. This is just one example from a career filled with horrific judgement and complete incompetence/ineptitude at his position. Jeffrey Anderson wishes he was one of the worst officials in Big Ten History. Ed Hightower, TV Teddy, Bo Boroski, Dj Carstensen, Larry Scirotto, Courtney Green… all considered to be the worst of the worst and the most infamous referees in Big Ten history. Jeffrey Anderson can’t even carry their gym bags.
Center of attention, Mr. “Look at me” Jeff “High Knees” Anderson.
Big Man on Campus:
Caleb Furst, Purdue’s lone senior, has finished his career as Purdue’s all-time winningest player. The engaged to be married, future med-school student, hyper intelligent, man of God, is everything that a program would want from a player. From his hilarious elf parody, to his production on the floor, Caleb Furst has earned this week’s BMOC Award!
One Last Thing:
There are a lot of adjectives to describe Illinois fans. Passionate. Intense. Infamous. Delusional. Rabid. There are quite a few more that we could throw in the mix. They are particularly vicious on Twitter. If you want an instant boost in engagement levels, mention the Illini, and the Tweets start swarming like birds in a Hitchcock film.
Multiple media outlets have reported that Illinois fans were hurling racial slurs at Trey Kaufman Renn’s family while in the State Farm center on Friday. Illinois immediately apologized for the behavior and launched an investigation.
I’ll stop short of adding another adjective to the ever growing lists of words to describe Illinois fans. I do not believe that the bad apples in the Illini fanbase represent the whole. It is just disappointing that, in the year of our lord 2025, there are still these type of people out there. I am all for hostile and rowdy crowds. I am all for the unkind banter of two rival fans. Under no circumstances, ever, is racism the answer. Ever. Full stop. I would think that this is a pretty safe thing to agree with. I don’t care if you are a Purdue fan, an Illinois fan, an IU fan, a freaking Alabama fan… I do not care. Racism is disgusting.
Now something that I can direct back to the Illinois fans. If you’re feeling lucky, feel free to open my tweet above. You will find the hive-minded Illinois fans responding. My tweet is a very newsy, very straight forward factual account of what happened at the time. Some of the responses that I got from Illinois fans are quite worthy of a few adjectives. Likewise, some cooler heads have led to some of the previous comments from Illini fans to be deleted. Also, to their credit, there were some level-headed Illinois fans who condemned the hatred, but the vast majority did not.
My tweet isn’t the only battleground with similar interactions with Illinois fans following this alleged incident. Its rampant. When people (or in this case a segment of a fanbase) show you who they are, listen to them.
A Look Ahead:
We have arrived at the B1G Ten Tournament, with Purdue garnering the #6 seed. Purdue will play the winner of Rutgers and USC on Thursday night. They are slated for the 9:00 PM slot, but often times these tournaments have delays. We will see. If Purdue wins their first game, they will have an opportunity to play Michigan on Friday.
We’re in the post season, baby! Our Boilermakers are only guaranteed 2 more games this season, one in the Big Ten Tournament, and the other in the NCAA Tournament. However, Purdue controls their destiny to play more!
For more content like this follow @ISC_PU on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. For a deeper look into the mad mind of Ben Kolodzinski, follow him at @BRKolo on Twitter. WARNING: Viewer’s discretion is advised…
Leave a Reply