Basketball is a different ballgame all together...this team was great at certain times, then they were equally pathetic at times too. They really fell apart at the end of the season and I can see no logical reason for their collapse. I really felt good about tonights game. Yes, VCU is the darling of the tourney and they are on fire, momentum pulling them along. There is always a team or two like this in every tourney...but Purdue had no business losing this game.
I am discouraged about Purdue Athletics...particularly the "Big Time" sports, football/basketball. I do not feel like we are making progress in either though I do think Coach Matt Painter has done a much better job with the B-Ball Team then Coach Hope has done with Football. Purdue Football is back to being a cellar dweller in just a few short years. Man I hate to admit that but I believe it's an accurate assessment...
It is discouraging to lose a basketball game like this but it happens. But it's disheartening to have a season like the football team just had. It just doesn't look good for the future and I'm giving serious thought to not getting season tickets after this year. 30 plus years and I've really had it. It isn't entertaining and now it is just so expensive with nothing to show for all the expense.
I really don't like coaches who make excuses. Coach Joe Tiller started doing that late in his coaching career with the Boilers. I think he just got tired after all he did a remarkable job building the program into something we were all proud of...But he seemed to burn out after all that effort. That was the beginning of the end. He got to conservative, started losing and blamed his players for it. It seems like Coach Hope has picked up where Tiller left off. Perhaps this is a bit harsh...but so has watching his footballs teams play from the stands of Ross-Ade for the last few years. Especially when we drive 3 hours plus EACH way every football Saturday to see such a performance...
I have been a loyal fan since I was a small boy, attended my first football game at the age of 5, in 1967 with my dad at Ross-Ade Stadium. My Grandparents lived two blocks down Evergreen St. from Mackey Arena and Ross-Ade. I've sat through hundreds of football and basketball games and honestly, I'm running out of "loyalty gas" for these teams. I do not like the way they quit. Tonight this team quit. The football team has quit in games the last two years, ACH...it truly is frustrating to the core of this fans heart.
Quit? Coach Painter won't tell you that...he loves his players and will defend them. I don't know how it looked from the bench during the game but on TV it truly did seem like they mailed it in...VCU punched back in the mid-1st half and the Boilers seemed to stagger, then cower and never never recovered.
My dad and I have been going to games since that game in '67 together. He turns 81 and though his health is good, his mobility is not the greatest and this combined with team performance lately almost certainly means that this is it, our last season of Purdue Boilermaker Football together. Honestly the pathetic, heartless product on the field makes it easier to leave.
Fair Weather Fan...you think?! No Freaking Way...After 34 years of MOSTLY lean years on the Gridiron and a lot of struggles in basketball I would say that we have paid our dues. I don't know...I'm typically not the quitting type so the idea of leaving seems almost impossible YET I'm pretty much there tonight.
Boiler Up? Nope how about Boiler DOWN!
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