Purdue men’s basketball wishes things went just a bit differently.

The Boilermakers had it all a season ago. 

Between the consensus best player in the nation, multiple weeks as the No. 1 team in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll and a top seed in the NCAA Tournament, Purdue looked primed to finally end decades of misfortune and near misses and finally bring a national championship back to the hoops-crazy city of West Lafayette, Indiana.

But the hardwood can be cruel and unforgiving sometimes, and as coach Matt Painter and his program learned the hard way in the first round of March Madness a few months ago, nothing is ever guaranteed or given to you.

On the bright side, setbacks and letdowns, even those to the level of which Purdue endured when it had a dubious exit from the NCAA tourney, can be fantastic motivators and sparks to something greater. 

And, judging by the sheer amount of talent expected back for the Boilers next season – including the reigning national player of the year – it sure doesn’t seem as if those who had eligibility remaining were satisfied with the way this past season went.

The defending kings of the mighty Big Ten Conference are here to defend their throne as likely favorites. Can it finally translate to a long-awaited crowning ceremony at the Final Four in Phoenix, too?

Here are five things to know about Purdue men’s basketball heading into a tour to Europe to face four opponents later this month, with all games on the trip being streamed live on FloHoops.

The Big Man Is Back

If you watched any college basketball at all during the 2022-2023 season, it was near-impossible to miss Zach Edey. That’s both due to his towering size at 7-foot-4 and due to the fact he’s coming off one of the most spectacular seasons from a center in college basketball history. He averaged 22.3 points, 12.9 rebounds, 2.1 blocks and 1.5 assists per game en route to winning every national player-of-the-year award there was to win. 

The Boilers were ranked at the top of the Associated Press Top 25 Poll for seven weeks a season ago, largely off of the back of their superstar big man, securing a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament in the process – though how that turned out is another story. 

Roster is set for next season.

📰: https://t.co/7N66tXh6aW pic.twitter.com/SXGJqC98sP

— Purdue Men's Basketball (@BoilerBall) June 1, 2023

After Purdue’s season ended, Edey declared for the draft process and was expected to be selected in the NBA Draft this summer. Instead, he withdrew his name prior to the eligibility deadline to make a shock return to West Lafayette with plenty of unfinished business. 

No player has won back-to-back Naismith Player of the Year awards since another similarly-tall and imposing center, Ralph Sampson, won three in a row from 1981-1983, but a repeat seriously is in the cards this year for Edey, as much of a motivated core is back with him, ready to try and get Purdue to the mountaintop.

Lots Of Familiar Faces

You don’t win both the Big Ten Conference’s regular-season and tournament titles with just one guy (yes, even if that guy is the best player in America), and though Purdue indeed leaned on Edey heavily during his awesome 2022-2023 season, he can’t do it all. Thus, it makes it all the more important that Edey’s return will be combined with much of his supporting cast back with him – 83.8% of the Boilers’ total minutes from this past season are back, per barttorvik.com. 

Among the crop is a lot of high-level talent born and bred in the basketball-mad Hoosier State.

The list includes Fletcher Loyer (from Fort Wayne), who had a great freshman season with a lot of promise in the backcourt, earning All-Big Ten honorable mention after being Purdue’s second-leading scorer (11 points per game). He was the most reliable option to turn to for a bucket when defenses honed in on Edey or the All-American was saddled with foul trouble and forced to sit. 

And with defense such a big part of Painter’s identity – Purdue allowed just 62.7 points per game this past season – having built-in chemistry and ideas of the type of system and tendencies he demands across the roster should make the Boilers a fierce foe to score on once again.

Who Steps Up In The Backcourt?

Though Edey was an animal on the low block and certainly handled the demands asked of him a year ago, Purdue’s sheer reliance on him also had the detriment of meaning the Boilers sometimes got too one-dimensional. Edey had a usage percentage of 32.8%, the second-highest mark in the Big Ten and a top-10 mark nationally. 

That would turn into a major issue if Edey, who admittedly was skilled at avoiding foul trouble at just 1.6 whistles per game called on him in during the 2022-2023 campaign, had to ride the pine for a stint or if opposing defenses did something to get him off-kilter, such as by double- or even triple-teaming him on the interior and/or on box outs. 

Thus, with extra tape from this past season to study about Edey’s tendencies, and more coaches cultivating ways to try and slow him down, it makes it even more imperative that the Boilers find a consistent second (or even third) option to turn to in games this winter, especially at the guard spots. 

2️⃣: Poised for a breakout. pic.twitter.com/gddT1WJLfV

— Purdue Men's Basketball (@BoilerBall) May 20, 2023

Though Loyer unquestionably was a bright spot who could help in a pinch, he also scored higher than Edey’s season-long average just once – a 27-point night against Nebraska in January. 

Purdue needs a breakout player or two, but the good news is that the Boilers have some prime candidates.

Sophomore guard Braden Smith made the Big Ten’s All-Freshman team and was an honorable mention team member with Loyer as Purdue’s top distributor (4.4 assists per game) and deep shooter (37.6% from 3-point range), for instance.

Jones An Eye-Catching Addition

As its high percentage of returning minutes implies, Purdue, unlike many other college hoops teams this summer, didn’t go buck-wild in the transfer portal or in recruiting as a whole. 

Four-star shooting guard Myles Colvin will be the only true freshman on scholarship on the Boilers’ roster this upcoming season, and the one transfer portal addition Painter did ink – former Southern Illinois guard Lance Jones – has a high chance of evolving into one of Purdue’s most important players in its push for a national championship. 

Jones spent four seasons with the Salukis and started 113 of a possible 119 games, twice being named to both an All-Missouri Valley Conference team and the MVC All-Defensive team as he averaged double-figure scoring numbers three straight seasons and led the MVC in steals twice, evolving into arguably the conference’s premier lockdown perimeter defender. 

That two-way play should fit nicely into a team that has made defense a major part of its identity and in a Big Ten that prioritizes toughness and tenacity – and Purdue fans will get their first competitive look at him in his new uniform during the Boilers’ upcoming foreign tour.

Will Disappointment Finally End?

Purdue has heard the jokes and seen the memes about how it may be a 25-time Big Ten regular-season champ – the most titles by a team in the league’s history – yet it hasn’t delivered on sky-high hype in the postseason, last making the Final Four in 1980. 

But the past three NCAA Tournaments have been especially brutal for the Boilers, as the barbs toward the program have only intensified in the most embarrassing of ways. 

There was the loss to No. 13 North Texas in 2021. It was disappointing, yet not debilitating, considering how strong of a program now-Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland built there, but the Sweet 16 defeat in 2022 by Saint Peter’s – which became the first No. 15 seed in history to reach the Elite Eight because of that win – really stung, especially as the Boilers (a 3 seed) were the highest-seeded team remaining in the East Region when that occurred. 

Still, nothing could’ve prepared Purdue for the onslaught of criticism and commentary that would come when Fairleigh Dickinson became just the second No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1.

"That, to me, was the single-greatest upset and moment in the history of the NCAA Tournament!"

—@AdamSchein on @FDUKnightsMBB victory over Purdue pic.twitter.com/wx9tjyVDEm

— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) March 20, 2023

FDU took down Purdue in a mammoth upset as 23½-point underdogs, making the Knights the nation’s darlings and the Boilers the nation’s laughingstocks. 

Obvious embarrassment aside, if there’s any silver lining for Purdue, it’s that the only other top-seeded team to lose to a 16 – Virginia, which made infamous history after its 2018 loss to UMBC – stormed back the next year to win the national title for the first time, breaking its own Final Four drought (35 years prior to 2019). 

If there indeed are brighter days ahead for Purdue after such disaster a few months ago, it may have years of frustration to thank, in an odd way, for motivating the team to finally break all the hexes and make history for a storied program.