Only a week remains in the college basketball regular season and our ladies finished up their regular season today with a 90-58 thrashing of Indiana. That brought Purdue within a point and a half of Indiana in the Crimson & Gold Cup Standings after a weekend where the indoor Track and Field teams and the men's swimming and diving teams lost all three points to IU. Women's basketball is the first part of this odds and ends Sunday evening update.
Purdue is the No. 4 seed in the women's Big Ten Tournament
A few weeks ago Purdue was all alone in first place in the Big Ten. That is before they started dropping close game after close game in agonizing fashion. The Boilers lost 5 of 6 after starting the league 8-0. As a result, Purdue finished in a four way tie for second in the league at 11-5 and will be the four seed after losing tiebreakers with Iowa and Ohio State. Purdue does, however, win the tiebreaker with Michigan State and will get a first round bye at the Big Ten Tournament this coming week. Purdue will play on Friday in the final game of the day against No. 5 seed Michigan State or No. 12 seed Indiana. No. 1 Penn State would likely wait in the semifinals on Saturday then.
Baseball takes 2 of 3 at Keith LeClair Classic
It was another successful weekend for Boilermaker baseball as Purdue beat East Carolina 6-4 on their home field and beat Western Carolina 14-7 today. Purdue dropped last night's nightcap 11-1 to Maryland when the bats fell silent. Overall, Purdue finished second in the round-robin tournament. Maryland won all three games, while Purdue was 2-1, Maryland was 1-2, and Western Carolina 0-3. As mentioned in Friday's preview though, the East Carolina win counts more since it is a true road win, which gets a 1.3 multiplier in the new RPI formula.
At 5-1 on the season Purdue will likely receive some votes in this week's college baseball poll, and could be on the verge of the top 25 if they continue to play well in the early season. Next week they are at Auburn for another four-team round robin against Auburn (4-4), Southern Mississippi (4-3), and Charleston Southern (4-4).
In the ECU tournament Eric Charles was on fire, batting .667 for the weekend. Kevin Plawecki and Cameron Perkins each drove in three runs. Joe Haase earned his first win of the season in yesterday's opener while Brett Andrzejewski earned the win today by virtue of pitching only a third of an inning to close Western Carolina's four-run sixth inning. Those four runs tied the game at 7-7 and Andrzejewski faced only two batters, but since Purdue exploded for seven runs in the bottom of the 6th Andrzejewski got the win.
Big Ten Indoor Track And Field Championships
Purdue did not do well as a team, but Leah Eber was the Big Ten champion in the women's high jump and Dani Bunch won the weight throw on the women's front. On the men's side several football players (Raheem Mostert, Ishmael Aristide, Akeem Hunt, and Normondo Harris) performed well, but no one won an individual title.
Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament Seeding
Everyone has two games left, and it looks like Purdue is going to be locked into the first day of the tournament. Purdue can finish as high as tied for second, but tiebreakers do not favor them even if things break right this week. Wisconsin's win over Ohio State likely ended Purdue's hope of passing the Badgers and getting a first day bye.
Michigan State has clinched at least a share of the regular season title and will clinch it outright with one more win or losses by Ohio State and Michigan. Purdue is tied for fifth with Indiana, but the loss to the Hoosiers at Mackey gives them the tiebreaker. Even if Purdue beats Penn State and Michigan State beats Indiana this week Purdue has to beat Indiana on Sunday to get the five seed.
Since Wisconsin owns the head-to-head tiebreaker the Badgers must lose their last two games (Minnesota and Illinois at home) and Purdue must win its last two in order to pass them. If Michigan loses at Illinois and Penn State and Purdue wins its last two we can tie with the Wolverines, but since Michigan beat Michigan State and we lost both games, they get the tiebreaker over us. Purdue can tie with Ohio State, but their win in Columbus gives them the edge.
Purdue can be no worse than the 7 seed, however. The tiebreaker we own with the sweep of Northwestern assures that. One more Iowa loss or a Purdue win assures Purdue of at least the No. 6 seed. Since Purdue will likely be the 5 or the six that means an opening game against Penn State or Nebraska, so it would be wise to win that game and avoid a bad loss. Either way, Purdue would play in the second game of either the afternoon or evening session on Thursday. Should we get the four seed, we'd play in the second game on Friday. The only way Purdue gets there is if it wins out and Wisconsin loses out, however.