The Purdue men's basketball team has become infamous in recent years for being upset in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Under head coach Matt Painter, the Boilermakers lost to No. 16 seed Farleigh Dickinson and No. 14 seed North Texas over the course of three seasons, but they have overcome these obstacles in recent years.
Last season, the team went all the way to the National Championship game, where they lost to UConn, the defending champions. This season, they survived a scare in the first round against No. 13 seed High Point University, but they were set to face the ultra-hot and ultra-popular McNeese State Cowboys in the second round, who are a No. 12 seed.
This matchup gave the Boilermakers another opportunity to drop an early-round game to a double-digit seed, but Purdue emerged victorious on Saturday, proving that coach Painter's early upset woes are a thing of the past.
Matt Painter has officially solved his early upset woes
Purdue jumped out to an early lead against McNeese State in the Round of 32, clinging to an 18-point halftime lead. The lead ballooned as high as 26 points, but a late Cowboys run made the final score look closer than it actually was.
The notion that Painter suffered numerous early-round exits was a bit overblown anyway. In his 20-year tenure at the helm of Purdue basketball, he has been in March Madness 16 times and only lost in the first round on three occasions.
If Painter and Boilermakers can make another deep tournament run, and they are well on their way, then college basketball fans will quickly forget about his bad stretch in the early 2020s. Though you can't change the past, Purdue has taken steps in recent seasons to ease the tension of those early-round losses.
Now, they'll face the winner of Houston and Gonzaga in the Sweet 16 with a chance to prove that not only are they, not the team that loses early in the Tournament, but they're capable of bringing home the first National Championship in school history.