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The good guys in old gold and black were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament yesterday in a 6-3 loss to Kentucky.
Purdue won their opening game in the middle of the cold night Friday into Saturday over Valparaiso and then lost to Kent State and Kentucky over the weekend. I guess it turns out staying up until 2 AM and then playing the next day isn't good for your baseball mojo. Yet it's hard to cry bad luck when the two teams that beat you were the two who played more than two games worth of baseball in one evening.
In the end, this is just how baseball works. If your hitting goes cold for any stretch in a tournament style setup, you don't have much room for error. Everything that went right for the Boilermakers in the Big Ten Tournament went wrong for them in the big tourney.
The Boilers would have needed to beat Kentucky and then almost immediately play Kent State again. If they had beaten Kent, they would have needed to beat them again today in order to advance to the Super Regional. Kent St went on to eliminate Kentucky and advance.
Also, as disappointing as this is, if you're curious as to the quality of the teams Purdue lost to, the Boilermakers wound up 45-14 on the season, Kentucky was 45-18 and Kent State is 44-17.
This terrific season with conference titles and award-winning performances will hopefully serve as a starting point for a consistently-successful program. Sometimes one really promising year is all it takes. With the Boilers' new ballpark opening next season (assume no more delays), the future is bright for Purdue baseball.