The Purdue faithful’s postmortem following arguably the biggest upset in college basketball history will continue for some time, generate a lot of opinions and suggestions. The following several posts will add to that chorus. That said, it seems most of the cacophony surrounds finding that one or two thing(s) the program needs to do differently to avoid being Turdue in March when there are several – at least potential – changes called for. Therefore, this will arrive as several posts to adequately cover the as-seen issues.

1. I won’t address the "to Painter or not to Painter" debate; the intrenched issues may be solvable with him, or they may not. In any event, the emphasis here is on problem-solving. Some issues need to be identified before they can be solved; others may be easier to address, or serendipity has seen to it a fix is not far away.

1. First off, as happy as I am for this team exceeding early-season expectations, here are a few reality checks:

a. This team won a Big Ten conference which was not the weakest (see 1995 and 2004 for those) but also not the strongest (only one team out of eight NCAA tournament invitees survived the first weekend).

b. Close wins at Ohio State, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Nebraska and against Maryland means, despite winning the conference by a three-game cushion, it was 10 points from not taking home the title at all. Their perch at the top is even more tenuous given the fact Purdue did not have to play at Rutgers, Illinois, or Iowa.

c. Purdue’s Big Ten tournament five-point win against Rutgers was against a team missing arguably its most important player the final five weeks of the regular season; that team’s 2-6 finish demonstrates the change.

... more to come ...