Three ugly words: Strength of Schedule. That will be Purdue's undoing between now and the B1G Tournament, relative to the better teams in the conference.
First my prediction, then my assumptions. We'll finish in a tie with Minnesota for 6th place, though the Gophers will hold the tiebreaker based on their win in Mackey earlier this month. Ugh.
Not pretty, and a sad, far cry from our brief stay atop the B1G earlier this year.
Based on strength of schedule (SOS) much tougher than any team other than Indiana, we'll slump to the middle of the conference by the end of the season.