Interesting Purdue story from the WSJ.
A Great Day to Be a Boilermaker"In basketball, Purdue is one of the conference's top programs—arguably the top one. The Boilers have won 21 regular-season Big Ten titles, the most of any member. No Big Ten team owns a winning record against Purdue, rival Indiana included. Yet while Indiana has won the NCAA tournament five times, Purdue never has. For the Boilers, the tournament has been one long, sad tale of upsets, blown No. 1 seeds and disappointment.
After making its second Final Four in 1980, the Boilers never made it back under Mr. Keady, who retired in 2005 after an otherwise-successful 25-year reign. One defeat was particularly painful: the 2000 regional-final loss to eighth-seeded Wisconsin, one game shy of the Final Four. "It was toward the end of my career; I knew it was probably my last shot," Mr. Keady says. "That set bad with me. It's like, what is life all about?"
Purdue's postseason problem was always a lack of star talent. "It was hard to get a recruit away from Knight," says Mr. Keady, referring to Hall of Fame former Indiana coach Bobby Knight. ESPN analyst Steve Lavin, a former assistant coach under Mr. Keady, pointed out how the Boilers' No. 1-seeded team in the 1988 tournament seemed stacked, with future pros Todd Mitchell, Mel McCants and Everette Stephens. But Purdue lost to No. 4-seed Kansas State and guard Mitch Richmond, who went on to score over 20,000 more points in the NBA than the Purdue trio combined."
