Pur Did

Given my post from last month, Pur Didn't, I felt obligated to write this one, with Purdue winning the Big Ten Tournament.  Congratulations to them, and with that they are now a #2 Seed in the West Regional of the NCAA Tournament.  So, this win would seem to establish Purdue as a real contender.  

But that earlier post was mainly concerned with player injury and having teams try to avoid that before the NCAA Tournament.  Indeed, as the play was very physical in the championship game between Purdue and Michigan, both Trey Kaufman-Renn of Purdue and Yaxel Lendeborg of Michigan were injured, though how severe those injuries are is anyone's guess.  

In contrast, Illinois had another overtime loss, this one in its quarterfinals matchup against Wisconsin on Friday. And in that game they surrendered a large lead, similar to what happened in the regular season game against UCLA. It's hard to know if the player miscues, and there were more than a few of those, were somehow related to player injuries, the type that aren't officially reported.  Coach Underwood has said that Keaton Wagler has been nursing an injury to his back.  Will a few extra days of taking it easy help to improve his condition?  Again, who knows?  But it surely couldn't hurt.

Illinois will be a #3 Seed in the South Regional, in spite of that Friday loss.  The advantage of being well seeded is most pronounced in the first round game, though that does put on some added pressure because everyone expects the team to win.  And because of its recent losses, Illinois may be susceptible to that.  We'll see.

As I'm wrapping this up, we are under a tornado warning here.  We will likely get a severe thunderstorm in the next few minutes.  Later tonight it is supposed to snow.  I can imagine that bad weather might interfere with travel plans that teams have.  I mention this only because it is another random factor that could influence the outcomes in some of the Tournament games, yet nobody has that factored in at the moment.  I hope it ends up not mattering.  Again, we'll see.