GLENDALE, Ariz. – The most obvious sequence of distressing numbers to consider when examining what became of Purdue’s 2022-23 season, which included dual Big Ten championships and a national player of the year award but still managed to be heartbreaking, was the final score of the March Madness opener against Fairleigh Dickinson.
The result was 68-53 in favor of the No. 16 seed Knights. That is not something easily forgotten.
“It’s not even the game: It’s that feeling after,” shooting guard Fletcher Loyer said Sunday. “It’s just how empty you felt. All that work you put in, you felt like you just wasted it. You just wasted your time.
“Kind of all summer when we were in there lifting, guys were maybe failing on sets or just struggling, which happens in the weight room, you’re just pushing each other, you’re yelling at each other, just because we all had that same feeling in that locker room.”
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Such an occasion rarely is an accident, though. There’s much that goes into an upset of that magnitude – only the second time in nearly 40 years of the 64-team NCAA Tournament that a No. 1 seed had fallen to a No. 16. In Purdue’s case, the principle ingredient was a lot of missed shots.
Loyer himself went 2-of-20 from the field in the last four games before the tournament began, and that included a triumph in the 2023 Big Ten Tournament. From Feb. 1 to the start of the NCAAs, he shot 21.7% on 3-pointers.
It may be too convenient to ascribe that entirely to the “freshman wall” – the point at which a first-year player is reminded there are many more games in a college season than a high school campaign – but such a decline had to be avoided in 2023-24 if the Boilermakers were to achieve their goals.
Two of the biggest goals have been reached: They advanced to the Final Four and won here Saturday at State Farm Stadium against NC State, setting up an NCAA title game showdown Monday night with reigning champion Connecticut. Purdue would like to become the second team to go from losing to a No. 16 seed to claiming a national title.
“That’s kind of the Purdue culture,” two-time Sporting News Player of the Year winner Zach Edey said. “When you go through that, it either breaks or you come out stronger. And we’re a team that’s come out stronger.”
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Loyer’s play has been an essential part of this. He has scored in double figures in four of Purdue’s five NCAA Tournament games. He has converted 50% of his 3-point attempts and 91.7% of his free throws. He isn’t committing even one turnover per game.
It appears he surmounted the freshman wall long ago.
About that sophomore wall, though…
The pivotal point in Purdue’s season might have come when Loyer found himself in another February slump. After going 3-of-5 from deep in the final game of January, an overtime win against Big Ten contender Northwestern, Loyer began February by going 1-of-7 from 3-point range over the first five games of the month. The “one” was a problem. The “seven” was a crisis. He averaged 5.6 points in those games.
“It definitely wasn’t easy. That was the worst month of the season, for sure,” Loyer told The Sporting News. “But you’ve got a team that can go compete for a national championship – we said this all year, we said it all summer – and kind of going through a slump like that, you don’t want to look back in 20 years with regret.
“You don’t want to regret not pushing yourself and not trusting yourself to go out there perform, when you know you can, you’ve done it for a full year and a half now.”
Assistant coach P.J. Thompson, who functions as Purdue’s offensive coordinator, told TSN it was important for everyone to “stay process-based” and to recognize that every game is different based on how the opposition challenged the Boilers.
“I think Fletch has done a really good job of giving more attention to detail at the defensive end, making hustle plays, diving on the floor, getting loose balls, keeping his man in front, rebounding,” Thompson said. “Normally the basketball gods reward you. The game opens up.
“We understand: He was recruited here to make shots, and he didn’t shoot as well as he wanted to last year. The same struggles happened around that same time. … But he’s one of the toughest, strongest-minded kids, ever. He almost has an irrational confidence about him, which is a good thing. When it comes to playing basketball at the highest level, and when it comes to this point in the season, you have to. I’ve never been around a really good player that doesn’t believe in himself.”
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Loyer broke out of that slump, in a sense, by going 1-of-5 from long range in an uninspired loss at Michigan. The aggression had returned. From that point, Loyer has shot 59.4% on 3-pointers and averaged 11.8 points per game.
When Loyer hit his first 3-pointer against NC State in Saturday’s semifinal – he finished 3-of-5 – he turned to the crowd and waved his arms with all the confidence that was embodied in Michael Jordan’s shrug decades ago.
That FDU upset came 12 months ago, but based on Purdue’s swagger, the loss seems well buried in the past.
“I think we were all just shocked and didn’t really realize what happened. We just didn’t show up that day ready to play,” sophomore guard Braden Smith told TSN. “I was back on the court a week after that game. I was just ready to drop it and put the work in so we could be ready for this year. I think everybody was kind of the same way.”
