LOS ANGELES — Purdue basketball’s veterans have the Boilermakers ready for moments like this Tuesday.
No. 4 Purdue led by six points with less than two minutes left in the game before losing to UCLA 69-67.
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Brayden Smith has been here before, which allowed the senior point guard to process what happened smoothly.
“We want to win every game. That’s obviously our goal,” Smith said after two turnovers that night during UCLA’s 8-0 run in the final 1:32. “At the end of the day, we knew this was going to happen. We were going to lose the game or they were going to let us have a bad night. They were going to let us have a bad night where we didn’t play well.”
It’s the ebb and flow of a season.
The Boilermakers won a game at USC on Saturday that they probably shouldn’t have won. On Tuesday, January 20, they lost a game they should have won.
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“I thought we didn’t play our best basketball,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “You also can’t look at something (like), because you missed the shot, you didn’t play well. I think it’s confusing sometimes. Did you shoot the ball well? Did you play well? We didn’t shoot the ball to the extent that we were capable of, but I think our guys were competitive.”
More: Late turnovers lead to Purdue basketball’s first loss to UCLA
Purdue improved on Saturday’s win in many ways, despite not achieving the same result against the Bruins.
It’s the fine line you walk to maintain balance over the course of a long season.
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Smith, Trey Kaufman-Lane and Fletcher Loyer learned two years ago that they were starting for one of Purdue’s best teams ever.
The team lost five games, including one to Ohio State, which had lost seven of its previous eight games and had just fired its head coach.
“You have to move on immediately,” Kaufman-Wren said. “We still have three days and one game left.”
In this case, it’s Saturday when Illinois visits McGee Arena.
It’s a long season.
In Smith’s words, one loss couldn’t turn into two or three losses.
UCLA Bruins guard Eric Dailey Jr. (3), Purdue Boilermakers forward Trey Kaufman-Renn (4) and center Daniel Jacobsen (12) rally in the second half at Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom Financial.
The team that can best cope with and take losses in stride will ultimately benefit.
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Purdue last lost six weeks ago. Prior to Tuesday night, the Boilermakers had won 10 straight games since Iowa State shocked Purdue in its own stadium on Dec. 6.
“It really helped us a lot after losing to Iowa State in terms of where we needed to be and what we needed to do,” said sophomore CJ Cox, who hit a game-winning 3-pointer in front of the rim to seal UCLA’s loss. “I feel like this road loss is another loss that’s going to help us get better going into the Big Ten and March Madness.”
Sam King covers sports for The Wall Street Journal and The Courier. Email him at Skinking@jconline.com and follow him on X and Instagram @samueltking.
This article originally appeared in the Indianapolis Star: Purdue vs. UCLA: What Boilermakers’ late collapse means for their season
