Purdue basketball found its ‘real problems’ in blowout exhibition loss to UConn

HARTFORD, CT — Purdue men’s basketball coach Matt Painter asked for a “beehive,” and UConn certainly brought a swarm to PeoplesBank Arena on Tuesday night.

That doesn’t mean the Boilermakers wanted to get stung quite this badly. A 76-53 loss exposed this still-coalescing team in ways its wins over Ball State and Purdue Fort Wayne could not.

Advertisement

That was the point, to a degree. They keep score in exhibition games, of course, and Purdue and Painter want to win them. Those are secondary concerns to getting back on a plane with teachable moments in tow.

Still, when you play a team with three Final Four trips and two national championships in the past four years, you draw eyeballs. This was not the early impression these Boilermakers wanted to make. This was not the team it wanted to be under pressure against the elite, even with plenty of leaves still on the trees.

Suffering an indignity in October, though, only helps if a team confronts its vulnerabilities and repairs them. That cannot be a weeks-long process. Purdue travels to Las Vegas to open the season against Gonzaga on Monday.

Purdue knew what kind of team UConn was before it landed in Hartford. It left determined not to remain the team it appeared to be Tuesday.

Advertisement

“We have some guys that have a false sense of what it’s like to play high-level basketball together,” Painter said. “… Any time you have a different role, you didn’t play as much, you think if I get that opportunity that’s all I need. Well, there’s a lot of people that got that opportunity tonight and I didn’t see that.

“But, now you see our real problems, because that’s a real team. We have to go back to the drawing board and get better at what we do.”

1 / 9

Purdue basketball photos vs. UConn in college basketball action

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT – OCTOBER 27: Braylon Mullins #24 of the Connecticut Huskies is defended by C.J. Cox #0 of the Purdue Boilermakers during the first half of the NCAA men’s exhibition basketball game at PeoplesBank Arena…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/purdue-basketball-found-real-problems-084747538.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-10-28 08:47:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.