The Palestra, in the heart of Philadelphia, a venue of ghosts and historic basketball no bigger than a high school gym in Indiana.

But for me, this trip was let about the spectacle.

For most road trips, it is a lonely endeavor. Stranger cities with long car rides or short flights, and unfamiliar names and places banded together in too loud environments. But at the Palestra, I got to sit next to Andrew Ledman. Ledman, the leader at Hammer and Rails, and my podcast partner for the last few years, gets it.

He went to Purdue. He helped lead the Paint Crew. He sat next to me at a Philadelphia game before, against St. Peter's, and sharing these moments with someone you consider as one of your best friends and best people you know makes you realize how lucky the terms of your life are.

And the sheer weirdness of Palestra, its circled concrete, its ancient bathrooms, and small crowd made for one of the cooler memories on the road covering Purdue over the last three seasons.

I'm not a fighter, but I can imagine one of the most important lessons about person on person violence is the confidence that you can get back up from your opponent's best shot.

Get where I'm doing?

There's something very innocent, very pure about true freshmen playing 13 games and never having been knocked down. Sure, Nebraska gave Purdue as good as it got, and when Matt Painter honestly assessed the game afterwards, he's not sure Purdue was the better team and deserved to win that one. It went to overtime afterwards. A basket either way and the whole result gets upended.

But Purdue did win. They might have stumbled, but in college basketball, in the Big Ten, on the road, winning under any circumstances is far from getting knocked to the mat.

So, here Purdue is, in Philadelphia - a city now full of St. Peters ghosts for Purdue, in the Palestra, an arena certainly old enough with enough history to house more than it's fair share of ghosts.

That's the story anyways. There's stories of basketball players who came back to haunt the place.

After all, if ball is life, why can't ball be death, too?

Workers have reported that when they were alone inside the Palestra they could hear the echo of dribbles reverberating the old stone walls. The Palestra is a circle loop around an intimate court setting. The hallways are from a time, the building having been built in the 1920's, that would allow for echoes to grow rapidly, forming from tiny water drops or foot steps to ghost dribbles.

I chose that picture for the top of the story because it's Zach Edey dunking and that's one of the best things in college basketball. I'll never get over Edey dunking. But also because just beyond him, in the hazy rafters of the Palestra you can see something that's always haunted Purdue and its fans, the ghosts of banners so far away from now that even though there is visual evidence, they're hard to believe in.

But anyways, old basketball arenas, field houses, courts, or what have you, are really cool. Ghosts or not, more games have been played at the Palestra than any other college basketball arena. They're closing in on 100 years of the Palestra. Purdue playing there in front of a hostile Penn State crowd was equal parts cool and important. Let's get to that now.

It's important to note that though Matt Painter sounds different after this win, he's not saying anything different. No one on his team is.

I ask Braden Smith after the game what it means to have all those pull up jumpers that the coach has been asking him to take fall. His answer is earnest, but also team-forward, appreciative and humble. In other words, the same words he's been using since the start of the season.

"It's just awesome to have the confidence from the coaches and the players. Just telling me, praising me, saying 'hey we need you to shoot the ball.' Just hearing that as an offensive player just sparks it. It's huge."

Smith has now made 3 threes in back to back games. He's now leading the team in three-point percentage at nearly 44%. He's 8 of 18 in Big Ten games. That's the tenth best mark in the conference.

He's not alone in finding himself this week. Fletcher Loyer, the second-half man, the other true freshman and Purdue's second leading scorer is there, too.

So I ask him if this ability to get hot early in the second half in spite of first half performances, is that something he can gain confidence from?

"It's just the trust the teammates have in me and my coaches. But also the trust we put in one another. We tell everyone to keep shooting because we see the work they put in, the shots they keep continuing to shoot before and after practice. Really just trusting one another. Knowing whoever's turn it is to step up, they've got to do it."


Anyways, back to ghosts.

Purdue lost ugly to Rutgers. Ugly because it happened at Mackey Arena. The thought invading Purdue fans and national critics was an easy one to arrive at. If Purdue can be vulnerable at home, what does that mean about what this team really is?

Matt Painter sounds different after the Penn State game. That's important.

After Portland, Painter's tone was upbeat, but what he was telling us was not to be surprised. He knew his team was good even if we couldn't see it. This wasn't surprising. They belonged here, he was telling us.

But he didn't know. He didn't know, really, what this team was made up of when it came to getting back up off the floor. For 13 games, Purdue avoided the haymaker. Rutgers gave it to them with its long arms and swarming defense. Purdue crumpled even with Mackey at its back.

Then Purdue went on the road and beat Ohio State. Metaphors are sometimes too easy. Loyer had his worst half of college basketball in that game. Purdue started 0-8 from three. They were continuing to miss and team's were starting to hit back. Then threes started falling, most importantly, the last one, the one Loyer also hit against Rutgers, but this time Purdue hit a three and got a stop and they held on.

They got off the mat.

Then they came to Philadelphia. The city of brotherly love, but for Purdue, it was a city where they recently couldn't get back up in one of the most disappointing NCAA losses in their impressive resume of NCAA losses.

Beating Penn State was a reminder, to them, the country, the Big Ten, Purdue wasn't just gonna keep getting up. They were still capable of landing hay makers of their own. Painter sounded like a Coach who had a team proving themselves to him.

"Just that we showed some resiliency," he said after the game on what he learned about his team.

A place like The Palestra can have you seeing ghosts and thinking about all the history around you. Those things haven’t been kind to Purdue in the past. It’ll take a special team to take those things on. We might need to start thinking about this team as special.

Painter can call this team resilient. I’m gonna go further. This team is capable of vanquishing ghosts.