Tag / Big Ten Tournament

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How Sweet (16) It Is

The Sweet Sixteen kicks off today following an opening weekend with upsets galore that played havoc with my bracket, although my entire Final Four is still intact, which is better than some.

Things look pretty decent here.  Auburn’s loss to Yale knocked me for a bit of a loop, but, aside from that, things are fairly clean, with three of the four teams heading into this weekend still alive.

Things are slightly worse on this side of the bracket, with just two of the four teams I picked playing this weekend.  While Nebraska did me dirty, I correctly picked that Wisconsin had peaked after beating Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament two weeks ago.

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Looking For Redemption

By nearly every metric, these last four season of Purdue men’s basketball have been the most successful in program history. They’ve won back-to-back conference championships.  They’ve won 59 Big Ten games, setting a school record and tying the conference record.

The one metric where they have fallen short is in the NCAA tournament.  Heading into this year’s tournament, they have put together two first round exits, against 13-seed North Texas in 2021 and 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson last year, becoming just the second 1-seed to fall in the opening round.  In 2022, they advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, where they were felled by 15-seed St. Peter’s.

Purdue enters the tournament this week as the #1 seed in the Midwest region and look to have an achievable path to the Final Four.  But they are coming off of a rough Big Ten tournament, where they scored a season-low 67 points in their victory over Michigan State before losing to Wisconsin in the semi-finals.  While Zach Edey was able to get his, scoring 29 and 28 points respectively, Lance Jones was the only other Boilermaker to reach double digits in either game, scoring 10 against Michigan State.  The so-called supporting cast answered the bell all year, but if they disappear once again in the tournament, Purdue will once again be on the outside looking in and will have squandered their best chance in decades at making the Final Four, let alone winning a national championship.

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Collecting The Hardware

While Purdue begins their defense of the Big Ten Tournament title this afternoon, they’ve already started to collect some post-season hardware.  On Wednesday, the Sporting News announced that Zach Edey was their National Player of the Year for the second straight season, making him just the eighth repeat winner since the award began in 1943.  Edey swept the six National Player of the Year awards last year and is the favorite to do so again this year, a feat last accomplished by Bill Walton in 1972 and 1973.

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26 Rings

One week ago, Purdue defeated Michigan State to earn at least a share of their 26th Big Ten Conference championship, the most in conference history.  A road victory against Illinois on Tuesday gave them the title outright, the first time a Big Ten team has gone back-to-back in over a decade and the first time Purdue has won back-to-back titles since winning three in a row from 1994-1996.

Their 26 titles are the most amongst all Big Ten schools, followed by the squad in Bloomington, who own 22 championships.  The Boilermakers have won four of the last eight conference titles, dating back to 2017.  Matt Painter has five conference titles under his belt, one less than Gene Keady and tied for seventh in conference history.  With the season wrapping up tomorrow at home against Wisconsin, the team has little to prove next week in the conference tournament while preparing to avenge last year’s first round loss in the NCAA tournament.

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Hooping It Up With 18

The Big Ten has announced multiple iterations of their scheduling plans for football to accommodate the additional four schools joining the conference next year, but there was no word of how basketball would adjust.  Until now.  On Tuesday, the conference announced details on how they will handle changes, both for the regular season and the Big Ten Tournament, for both men’s and women’s basketball.

For conference play, both the men’s and women’s schedules will remain where they are today, with 20 and 18 games respectively.  This will allow each school to maintain scheduling flexibility for their non-conference games and is consistent with the approach taken by other large conferences.  Teams that are only scheduled once per season will rotate locations annually, while those scheduled twice per season will be determined with consideration for competitive balance, geography and rivalries.

The Big Ten Tournament will expand to 15 teams from the current 14, leaving the bottom three teams in the conference sitting at home.  The top four seeds will continue to have a double bye, while seeds 5-9 will receive a single bye.  This format maintains the existing five-day schedule of the tournament and gives exposure to all teams that may still be in contention for postseason tournament invitations.

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A Year Of Activities

For the first time in my 49 years, I managed to attend a ticketed event in every month of 2023. Let’s take a look back and see what I had going on this year.
The first quarter of the year is typically the quietest for me.  This year started strong, with a trip to Florida for the Citrus Bowl on January 2nd.  College basketball ruled the day in February, with my first trip to Bloomington, Indiana coming that first weekend.  The Big Ten Tournament rolled into the United Center in March, making me three for three to start out the year.

The second quarter brings the start of baseball season, which easily knocked out the next three months.  I added 19 games over these three months, which included the Orioles against the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field in April, the Mets battling the Cubs at Wrigley Field in May, and my first-ever visit to T-Mobile Park in June to see the White Sox play the Mariners. Continue reading →

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College Basketball Tipoff

The men’s Purdue Boilermakers kicked off the 2023-2024 season last night, the 126th in school history, so let’s take a look at the results of the now 20 men’s college basketball games I have attended in my lifetime. You’d think it would be more, since I was a big fan and we had a great team while I was in school, but for some reason I only made it to two games while enrolled in college. The other 18 have been post-graduation, with the latest three coming last season thanks to a trip to Bloomington and the Big Ten Tournament being at the United Center.  Anyway, without further ado, here are the standings for those 20 games.

All-Time Team Records – Men

Team Won Loss Winning Pctg
Virginia Commonwealth Rams 1 0 1.000
North Texas Mean Green 1 0 1.000
Indiana Hoosiers 1 0 1.000
Butler Bulldogs 1 0 1.000
Purdue Boilermakers 12 7 0.631578947368421
Northwestern Wildcats 2 3 0.400
Illinois Fighting Illini 2 3 0.400
Vermont Catamounts 0 1 0.000
Penn State Nittany Lions 0 1 0.000
Ohio State Buckeyes 0 1 0.000
Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders 0 1 0.000
Long Beach State 49ers 0 1 0.000
Iowa State Cyclones 0 1 0.000
Houston Cougars 0 1 0.000
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Fitbit IX – Week 8

After a nice week thanks to days worth of activity, things came crashing back down this week.  The week actually got off to a decent start on Sunday, thanks to a trip to the United Center to see Purdue win the Big Ten Tournament, which left me a mere 4 steps shy of 5500.  Monday fell off the cliff, as I returned to work after a week of jury duty and ended the day with just 2200 steps.  Tuesday was even worse, just barely managing to pass 2000 steps.  A bit of an improvement on Wednesday pushed me up to 2700 steps.  Thursday was even better, coming 13 steps away from 3700.  Another drop on Friday put me back down at 2800 steps.  A night out for dinner with the Purdue crew pushed Saturday back up over 4200.

Total steps: 23,192

Daily average: 3313.1

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2022-2023 Final Standings

Purdue’s season came to an unexpected early end last night, as they became just the second #1 seed in the history of the men’s NCAA Tournament to lose to a #16 seed.  Thanks to last week’s Big Ten Tournament, I made it to three men’s basketball games this season and one women’s game.

2022-2023 Team Records – Men

TeamName Won Loss Winning Pctg
Indiana Hoosiers 1 0 1.000
Purdue Boilermakers 2 1 0.667
Penn State Nittany Lions 0 1 0.000
Ohio State Buckeyes 0 1 0.000

2022-2023 Team Records – Women

TeamName Won Loss Winning Pctg
Indiana Hoosiers 1 0 1.000
Purdue Boilermakers 0 1 0.000
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Fitbit IX – Week 7

A week of activity led to my best total since my trip to Florida to start the year.  Things got off to a poor start on Sunday as I managed to record just 3400 steps despite heading out to dinner with Angelina.  Monday trended upwards thanks to my first day of jury duty, finishing with just 4700 steps.  Day two on Tuesday was even better, jumping up to 6000 steps, my highest total since early February’s trip to Bloomington.  Day three of jury duty on Wednesday pushed me to the week’s high point, ending the day over 6800 steps, my highest total since the Citrus Bowl on January 2.  A slight decline on Thursday, due to only one trip back and forth to the jury parking lot, put me back down to 4500 steps.  Wrapping up jury duty on Friday left me 6 steps shy of 4500.  A trip to the United Center on Saturday to see Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament left me just 6 steps away from 5000.

Total steps: 35,095

Daily average: 5013.6