J, Panda and I wrote each other about midway through the second half to try to figure out who would get to have the joy of writing this one up; After a tournament of mother jokes and a mini-spelling bee, I was the champion...so now I get my prize: writing about tonight's loss in Iowa City.

The game was only slightly prettier than this painting.

It was tough to start this one so closely after the end of the game...my eyes were still partially bleeding and that makes it difficult to check your own work.  But I'm a Boilermaker, so I powered through it and now I bring you the many highlight from the game.

Donnie Hale and AJ Hammons played well. Hammons had 12 points and 9 rebounds, Hale had 13, but played with a ton of energy and looked to be moving faster than about everyone on the court, except for RonJohn...but the younger Johnson's speed caused him to have some ugly TOs; his ratio was 1:1 (6ast, 6to).  Byrd played OK, but missed a lot of makable shots.

Purdue only got to the line ten times...and made seven of those attempts (pretty solid).  Iowa, conversely, shot 29 FTs, made 21.

Purdue had 16 points at the end of the first half...Iowa had 23.  In the wake of the first half, Purdue's 32 point second half was an absolute offensive explosion; but it still made me tired to watch it.

Purdue's effort was better- Anthrop had a few minutes in which he seemed to be in the right place, right time over and over again.  But Purdue's offense looked extremely inept.  The sharp shooting from the Northwestern game that Byrd and TJohn displayed was nowhere to be found.

Crappy weather (and crappy basketball) kept the fans away from Iowa's Hawkeye-Carver Combo (Boston Market Reference) Arena.  Iowa's 92nd-best RPI rating surely got a huge bump after tonight's game...and in a few weeks, Iowa will be dancing thanks to this quality win over our Boilers.

Alright, maybe not.  As March quickly approaches, Iowa fans will wonder what might have been had a few injuries not affected their Hawkeyes...and we Purdue fans will wonder if our Boilers will be able to climb out of the sewer of the B1G conference standings next season.

Purdue stands at 13-15 (6-9), and the season will mercifully be over in less than two weeks...then, for the first time in over a month, things will get interesting as we wait to see who decides to transfer. I'm still hoping for everybody to stay...but with a warning that if they don't buy in, they won't play. We'll see.

Next up, Purdue goes to Wisconsin to play Bo's Badgers who are very much in the hunt.  Painter has historically been one of the most-successful coaches in the Kohl Center...but I don't see Matty's boys putting up much of a fight on Sunday afternoon; hope I'm very wrong.  Because, like you, I'll be watching and yelling at the TV, regardless of what happens.