I didn't realize how little we have played the Boilermakers. Saturdays game will be only the 2nd time we have played in the last 47 years. I'm sure there is a story to go with that. Irish are off to a good start and Purdue seems to be struggling. I'd be curious to hear Stu's take on the state of the Purdue program. Go Irish!
This will be a long season and Saturday will be a long evening for us. No point guard. Very poor shooting. Finally some tall guys but still working out how to get the ball inside against the zone. Poor post moves. Lots of sloppy turnovers. Positives; a very good rebounding team and they do hustle. http://purdue.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1447412
Terry, the only reason I can offer for the two teams not playing for such a long time is that Digger made no secret of the fact that he did not want to schedule them. I can't speak for why we haven't played them before and after the Digger era.
Sid I wonder if it had anything to do with Diggers relationship with Bobby Knight. He and Knight, I don't want to say close, but I think they were friends. Keady on the other hand probably didn't much of a relationship with Knight and I think Stu has said that during those years Purdue had the better of IU. Maybe some how that factored into the coolness between ND and Purdue in basketball.
Not by much...Keady/Knight was a good rivalry. Digger was Digger...nobody really knows why he didn't want to play us but I don't think that there was a big push by Gene Keady or George King to play Notre Dame anyway. I'm glad we're now able to play each other...but not this year. :?
Good win by the Irish, looked like it might be a blowout but Purdue came back strong in the 2nd half. That kid Rapheal Davis was lights out in the 2nd half for Purdue, if he can build on this game he can be a big contributor for the Boilermakers. Irish got a pretty balenced effort from their starters and as per usual for Brey not a very deep bench. Next 3 games are pretty much tomato cans for the Irish before we get into Big East play.
Best explanation I could find for why ND and Purdue don't play is that when there was talk of a new home/home series that Purdue said the last three games in the series were 2 home games for ND and 1 for Purdue. They wanted the next three games to be 2 home for Purdue and 1 for ND. Neither side would budge. Irish are now 21-20 vs Purdue all-time in basketball. Last regular season game was Jan 1966 which Purdue won at ND. In 2004 we won in a post season NIT Classic game at ND.