... but it is not a great Big Ten team right now, and there's a significant difference.

Big Ten basketball is not the same as college basketball at large, and the areas that have for so long defined the league seem to still be areas where the Boilermakers aren't nearly good enough.

Defensively, there is still buy-in missing, or at least lacking. Whether that's even an area where Purdue can still transform, who knows? It's January.

Purdue was not the physical authority against Wisconsin. Purdue has one of the biggest, most powerful rosters in the country and it was not the more physical team against the Badgers.

Rebounding: Purdue is huge and all that, but it is not a consistently good team blocking out. That's been part of the issue lately as opponents have gotten a bunch of second-chance points off the Boilermakers, that category looming large in the first half for the Badgers.

These are the sorts of bedrocks of Big Ten basketball that Purdue has always been a face of, but areas this particular Boilermaker must grow into, which is a nice way of putting it.

Wisconsin was tougher than Purdue on Monday night, and that was readily apparent long before the post-game press conference narrative setting.

Purdue's not going to just outscore everyone in Big Ten play like it could most of the non-conference season. The Iowa and Rutgers game illustrated that long before Wisconsin touched down in West Lafayette.

The Boilermakers are going to need to figure some of this stuff out to have the sort of season they aspire to, but the rest of the way, more games are going to be precisely like this one.