North Texas Ends Purdue's Season 78-69

No sense of urgency defined the last game of Purdue’s strange, surprisingly good 2020-2021 season.

It’s a real shame, as last memories of a team tend to be the lasting ones. Tonight’s memory was an overtime loss against, frankly, a sharpshooting 13-seed North Texas Mean Green team that looked hungrier and often better than the Boilermakers did all night.

Trevion Williams was a fierce post presence and Purdue’s bedrock all year, but both he and Zach Edey were invisible in the first half against an undersized North Texas frontcourt. Sharpshooters Sasha Stefanovic and Brandon Newman both took turns being excellent during the year, but neither were impactful at all tonight. Isaiah Thompson had a better night than expected, but his backcourt partner junior Eric Hunter looked hesitant and lost offensively. Mason Gillis was the only one crashing the glass hard all game, which should have been the clear point of advantage that Purdue rode to a victory, but instead the Mean Green drew basically even in the rebounding battle.

And then there was Jaden Ivey, Purdue’s budding superstar, who was the only player dragging Purdue’s lifeless offense along for most of the game, but (like the rest of the team) couldn’t find the basket during overtime.

We all expected a transition year for 2020-2021, particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic grinding everything around us to a halt, and this group of Boilermakers turned out to be a surprising, young, fun team. They made all of us proud to be part of the Purdue family, and in doing so they raised expectations for the postseason - expectations they gladly shouldered.

Don’t get me wrong - this team was so fun to watch all year, and this group will be much better after an offseason to grow (and stew on this loss). The backcourt gets a year older and wiser, the sharpshooters get more consistent, and the oversized frontcourt gets even more beefy with the additions of incoming freshmen forwards Trey Kaufman and Caleb Furst.

This will be a good, and borderline great team next year. But, it just makes things all the more frustrating when we saw them so lifeless for a half, and unable to get over the hump against a North Texas team that earned their school’s first tournament victory.

Boilerdowd’s got more thoughts on the Livecast stream below, and we’ll be back with some extended thoughts as we have more time to process this loss. But right now…it stings.

Feature image from @Boilerball