Hey all, how's it going? You might remember me. I used to cover Purdue women's basketball for Hammer & Rails before I was overcome with a bad case of engineering. Sigh....you do one electrical engineering assignment and you miss half a basketball season.

I'm too far behind to game wrap individual games at this point without doing a full Grantland and dropping a several-thousand-word post. Instead, I'm just going to touch on a few key areas and take a look at the future.

The Bare Bones

First, lets look at the basics: Purdue sits at 16-3, including a win over defending national champion Texas A&M. They are also 6-0 in the Big Ten, which is good for a one game lead on the field. They've bounced around the polls, which are kind of a joke in the women's game, and currently sit at lucky number 13 in one poll and 18 in the other. down the stretch, they're looking at an excellent shot at a Big Ten title and a top 4 seed in the tournament.

Take a jump with me and we'll take a look at the highs, lows, losses, and future for this team.

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via cmsimg.jconline.com

Last week I profiled some of the women's basketball team, but unlike your normal (read: punctual) player profiles, mine are done after the season is already underway. Which of course begs the question, how is said season going? The short answer is, quite well. The girls handled a D-II ranked Ediboro 88-73 in the exhibition, then ran over IUPUI 75-45 in the opener. They squeezed by a better-than-you'd-think Bowling Green on the road (whew), then blew out Tennessee-Martin and Chicago State by scores of 65-39 and 76-49, respectively. Their next two games were played in Cancun, as the Boilers made the trip they were denied last year by Drey's illness. Facing Tulane, the ladies won comfortably against Tulane, 61-48, before getting into a knock-down, drag-out OT war with Kansas State that finished just 46-42.

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     First off, Happy Thanksgiving to all!  Purdue women's basketball is once again underway.  Supporters and pundits alike expect a solid season, as the team has currently climbed to #15 in the rankings.  For those of you who are new to the program, or if you just want a look at development since last year's preview, I'll be running down the guards on this year's roster.  A look at the forwards will be forthcoming soon.  Also, the girls have handled the patsies of the non-con well, and I'll take a brief look at that tomorrow.  Unfortunately, though, the biggest news so far this season is bad: star-crossed F/C Drey Mingo tore her ACL in an intersquad scrimmage three weeks ago.

     It's hard to overstate how big a blow that was to the team.  Drey is a star.  She was a near-automatic double-double last year when she was healthy, despite a life-threatening illness almost exactly a year ago.  She could shoot (50% from 3), she could rebound, and she could score with her back to the basket in the post.  She protected the rim and battled opposing centers to a standstill.  In short, Drey was going to take over for OSU's departed Jantelle Lavender as top center in the conference and as Big Ten Player of the Year.  All that vanished in a heartbeat during a meaningless scrimmage against Indiana State.  It was a deveastating loss for Purdue and for the conference as a whole.

     But you know what?  I don't care anymore.  We took a paragraph to grieve, now it's time to attack.  This is a damn good team even if they'd never heard the name Drey.  These players are their own team now, and Drey's ACL shouldn't even be mentioned for the rest of the season.  I say this not to belittle Drey, but to make the point that no one, not me, not Coach Versyp, and most of all not the players, can just stand around wishing she was there to save them.

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Purdue Women finish on a 4-2 run to earn a spot in The Big Dance

I'll run down the individual games a bit later, but first I want to step back and take a look at this season as a whole.

So, we earned a bid.  What's that mean?  Frankly, it means this is a truly extraordinary team. At the beginning of the year I predicted a decent NCAA seed and a top 5 finish in the Big Ten.  Then we lost our PG 4 minutes into the season to a torn ACL.  Drey nearly died of meningitis.  Ashley Wilson was academically ineligible for the heart of B10 play.  Even Brittany struggled all season with a nagging back injury.  By all rights, this team ought to have folded like a cheap tent weeks ago.  But they didn't.  They got a 9 seed and finished one game out of a 4-way tie for third in the B10.

There were times this season when I was critical of this team, perhaps too critical.  We were starting a freshman at point, ateammate, to say nothing of a friend, nearly died, we had no seniors....everything militated against a solid season like this.  The resiliency of this team is astounding.

I'll leave things there for now, because the season isn't over.  After the jump, I'll look at how we locked up our bid.

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This is just a quick update to say that the women's team has returned the NCAA Tournament after a one year absence. That's not bad for a team that had its starting point guard for not even half a game and another starter that nearly died from a serious bacterial infection. The lady Boilers are the #9 seed in the Philadelphia region against Kansas State. They will play on Sunday at 2:30 in Storrs, CT.

With that comes the bad news. Purdue playing in Storrs means that the number 1 seed is, you guessed it, the all-powerful Connecticut Huskies. That means we can expect Purdue to maybe win one game before becoming a speed bump for the next Huskies Championship. It's hard to see them losing to a weakened Purdue when they are thumping top 5 teams by 30 points. Maybe we can hope for a case of food poisoning.

At least we'll be on their championship shirts when they list the scores.

It's been almost a month since we last checked in on the Lady Boilers, and that means it's time for a desk-clearer.  As of my last post, the Boilers had just pulled out a one-point win over Michigan to get their first Big Ten win, leaving them at 10-5 (1-2).  While that isn't bad, it's not great either, and the mix of wins and losses meant that we were in danger of missing the tournament.  Since that time, the team is on a 6-3 run to put them at 16-8.  They are also riding a 6-game home winning streak and in 5th in a tight Big Ten race.  More importantly, the latest Bracketology has us as a 9 seed, and rising.  So how did we get here?  One game at a time.

Win @ Indiana, 55-50

Player of the Game: Courtney Moses - 9 Pts, 5 Ast, 0 TO, 4 Reb, 4 Stl, 1 Blk(!)

The Boilers survived an off shooting night to win a tight one in Bloomington and defend the Barn Burner Trophy.  Tight defense and good free throw shooting (21-22) were the keys to this one.  Moses did a little bit of everything in this one, but most important was the clean sheet in turnovers.  Dee Dee Williams also had an excellent game, holding IU's leading scorer Jori Davis (25 ppg) to just 4 points while she was guarding her. Davis finished with 12 points on 4-16 shooting.  7 Boilersfinished with 4+ rebounds, led by Alex Guyton with 6.

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Any sports fan knows the cliche.  Coaches talk until they're blue in the face about "doing the little things."  When you win a close one, it's cause you did them right.  When you don't, you didn't.  Listening to coaches, sometimes it seems like the little things are the only things.

And yet, they talk about them because, cliche or not, they matter.  They win you games.  Against Wisconsin, we failed in all respects to do those little things.  Brittany scored 26 points and we still lost because we didn't play hard.  Against Michgan, the opposite was true: we locked down in the second half, andwe ground them down on the boards.  It was enough to make up for an off shooting night, especially from Brittany.  These games were all about heart and desire, and we deserved both results.

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Purdue handles Auburn in Boilermaker Blockbuster, runs over Southern Illinois, then squeezes past Gardner-Webb on the road.

What with the recent flurry of games, I'm multi-task-posting again.  Anybody noticing a pattern here?  Anyway, the Boilers have righted the ship in style after a tough 3-game slide.  They are now effectively done with the non-con schedule, with only a home date with Western Illinois left before Big Ten play.  Also, Drey Mingo is back, although not up to full speed, and Ashley Wilson is back into the rotation.  We're getting healthy and heading in the right direction.  I'll post a fuller reflection on the first 10 games in a few days, but all things considered, we're in a pretty good place right now.

Purdue 76, Auburn 56

This is a solid win over a power conference team, albeit a 4-6 one.  The Tigers have some good size up front, someting we've not seen a lot of so far.  We still outrebounded them 42-33, which is very good to see.  It means we can still rebound against teams that we can't simply out-athlete.  We also took care of the ball decently well, and our offense looked much smoother than it has, especially in the losing streak.  Alex Guyton had a very good game, scoring 14 and pulling down 9 rebounds to go with a pair of blocks and 4 steals.  Courtney Moses was sharp as well, with 12 points and 4 assists.  And last but not least, Drey Mingo returned.  She got a nice hand from the crowd, and was able to contribute 2 points and a board.  She is nowhere near full strength, but to be back at all less than 3 weeks after a life-threatening case of meningitis is incredible.

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