College Basketball Rankings December 24th: Purdue Remains on the Outside

Purdue only had one chance this week to shake off their two game losing streak when they hosted Ohio at home Thursday evening. They handled their business, jumping out to a big lead, and finishing the night with a 95-67 victory.

But a non-conference win at home against a middle of the pack mid-major team wasn’t enough to shake off the stink of 4 losses in 5 games before that. Purdue has had their chances to make waves, having leads and games go down to the wire against Virginia Tech, Florida St., Texas, and Notre Dame, but they’ve been unable to pick up a signature win past their home game against Maryland.

That has resulted in Purdue receiving just 3 votes from the AP.

Purdue will have one more game at home against Belmont before the B10 slate really gets cooking. This is good because the B10 is going to offer a whole lot more chances at signature wins as the conference is filling up the Top 25 with six teams in the top 25, four teams in the top 15, and Iowa sitting just outside of the Top 25 with 160 votes. (Oklahoma at #25 received 163 votes.)

Big Ten’s top team is Michigan, ranked at #2, who Purdue has already lost to on the road on the first day of December.

Virginia Tech, who Purdue led by double-digits in the second half at the Charleston Classic Championship game, has climbed into the top 10 at #10.

The month of January looks grueling for the Boilermakers, where six of their eight games are likely to be against ranked opponents including back to back games on the road against Michigan State and Wisconsin.

The Boilers have only one game left this year. They will play Belmont on Saturday, December 29th in Mackey Arena where they have yet to lose this season.