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Aaron Wheeler made one of the biggest plays of Purdue's season that wasn't a play at all.

In the final minute at Northwestern, the Wildcats fumbled a ball out of bounds, shortly after the Boilermakers had tied a game they trailed by eight with four-and-a-half minutes left, a game in which a loss may have set the Boilermakers' NCAA Tournament résumé aflame.

Ryan Young booted the ball out of bounds, but it was initially ruled off Wheeler, who then couldn't have been more polite in asking the official review. Replay was clear as can be: Wheeler never touched it.

Purdue ball.

Shortly thereafter, Wheeler's classmate, Sasha Stefanovic, finished off Purdue's first Big Ten road win, draining the game-winning three-pointer with a little more than three seconds remaining.

Since, Purdue has distinctly trended upward, and Wheeler's impact has been more overt.

Finally.

It's been a profound, and confounding, struggle for the sophomore this season, Wheeler being one of the players Purdue needed — and expected — big things from with some experience behind him. His role, and expectations for him, expanded this season. His productivity, for whatever reason, dipped considerably.

At Maryland a few weeks ago, Wheeler — an opening-night starter who averaged 30 minutes in Purdue's first three games of the season — played just seven minutes. At Rutgers 10 days later, six.

In a perfect world, Matt Painter says, coaches would be able to allow players to play through their difficulties, but that's not practical, and in Wheeler's case, the situation bottomed out. His jumpers weren't falling and his productivity in other areas yielded no net gain.

"Every shot I'd miss, I'd be like, 'Damn, what did I do wrong?'" Wheeler said. "But I've had to stay true to myself, knowing I shoot those shots all the time and staying with it and not question everything."

At Michigan, in the first of two overtimes, Wheeler's three that went three quarters of the way down, then out, sort of defined Wheeler's — and to that point, Purdue's — season. That shot may have won a game Purdue went on to lose, in maddening fashion.

"It just seemed like a lot of things were going against me," Wheeler said.

Nevertheless, Wheeler's positive demeanor never seemed to change, thanks in part, he says, to those around him. He says that while he struggled himself, he wanted to be a positive influence on teammates who were playing well, because "that's what they'd for me."

"We know what he's capable of," senior Evan Boudreaux said, "and we think he's much better than the numbers have shown this year."

That sort of belief in him, Wheeler says, kept him on an even keel, and assistant coach Brandon Brantley was among those to push "little things" as a path toward shots falling.

Energy, for one thing.

He made a pair of important hustle-driven plays at Northwestern.

Against Iowa, his scoring surge began, really, with a putback of an Eric Hunter miss, and later finishing off a fast break thanks to his urgency running the floor to put himself in position to do so.

The breakout came at Indiana, where Wheeler's back-to-back first-half threes comprised the most important swing of the game, taking Purdue from three down to three up and sparking the 12-0 run the Boilermakers used before halftime to seize control. After shooting 11 percent from three-point range in Big Ten games prior to Saturday, Wheeler was 3-for-3 at IU.

Still, it was his gathering of a loose ball and finish between two Hoosiers at the rim that lit Purdue's bench up more than any other play he made in Assembly Hall.

"Those plays are probably more important than anything," Painter said, "because when the ball's not going in, what do you bring to the table? He's been able to make those plays, and then you knew at some point he was going to break out, and for us it was just perfect timing at Indiana."

Now, Wheeler is playing well, producing as hoped for the first time this season, peaking at a juncture of the season in which it seems like every Boilermaker is playing their best basketball at once.

He will take nothing for granted, however.

"It's trending in the right direction and I'm trying to stick with it, trying not to get too high or too low," Wheeler said, "because next game you don't know what's going to happen."

That's especially true heading into Tuesday night. Penn State has won its last six. The Nittany Lions are 13th nationally. Forward Lamar Stevens — with whom Boudreaux and Wheeler will match up — may be the primary obstacle between Luka Garza and Big Ten Player-of-the-Year.

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