Today, GoldandBlack.com continues a new weekly feature. We're calling it the Weekly Word.

Why? Because it has words, it's posted weekly and we're just that unimaginative. (Actual feedback from Week 1: Definitely like the content, but a new name would be useful.)

Anyway, here are some random thoughts for the week, most of which will be Purdue-related.

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There's a lot of basketball left to play after Tuesday night's Purdue game at Maryland, and all the requisite asterisks about the unpredictability of college basketball, especially Big Ten college basketball, apply, but the truth is this: The Boilermakers' path to an improbable Big Ten championship will be doubly greased should they find a way to win in College Park.

Tuesday night's game at the Xfinity Center represents the last game Purdue will play during the regular season against a top-25 team. It's the last time prior to the postseason that the Boilermakers will face a team presently sitting in the top half dozen in the league.

Yes, four of Purdue's final seven games will be played on the road and no one will, or should, take trips to Indiana and Minnesota lightly, or Nebraska considering the 20 minutes of difficulty it just gave Purdue in Mackey Arena.

But consider the alternative.

The Boilermakers have played a vicious schedule.

However, the worst, or best, depending on your perspective, is over, and while Michigan and Michigan State cannibalize each other later this season, the Boilermakers will be hosting conference stuffing Illinois and Ohio State and boarding a bus to middling Northwestern.

Maryland is a tall order. The Terrapins are very good and the Xfinity Center is not to be trifled with. Purdue won't have Mackey Arena's wind at its sails this time like it did when it beat Maryland by the narrowest of margins two months ago. Purdue is better now than it was then, but that guarantees nothing.

Win Tuesday night and Purdue's sitting pretty. Lose and it's still in a cozy position.

But under either scenario, questions remain.

College basketball seasons are long and hard and teams inevitably have to slog through rough patches. The best, and luckiest, teams win anyway, but that doesn't mean it's easy.

Ask Michigan State, recent loser of three straight, or Michigan, which just endured a patch of less than awe-inspiring basketball itself.

Is Purdue due? Not a season has gone by where the Boilermakers haven't backed over the mailbox at one time or another. Or did they graduate out of such things through their early season difficulties against a great schedule?

Is Trevion Williams due a freshman wall? Or does the fact his season basically started on second base exempt him?

Can a team so dependent on threes keep winning if the shot well dries up here and there? So far, so good.

But understand this: Purdue isn't more than a few possessions here and there away from a very different reality, and the universe does have a funny way of straightening out.

This has been an almost surreal run for Purdue, a team that looked bound for nothing more than a participation trophy in the Big Ten a few weeks ago and now sits in position to maybe win a much bigger trophy.

It's been defined by as stark a coming-together of a team as Matt Painter has probably ever overseen at his alma mater and driven by the sort of basketball pragmatism that defines the coach himself.

Its practical, common-sense basketball, maximizing possessions by not turning the ball over, playing percentages on defense, working to take the highest-value shots and force the lowest-probability shots, cobbling together a team around a great player that makes the great player that much better.

It's pretty simple stuff, really, and it's put Purdue in position to do something special in a year no one could have seen it coming.

With the changeover from 2018 to 2019 has come a distinctly different tone coming from online megaphones about Grady Eifert, who wasn't so popular among fans back when Purdue was losing but may as well have been mayor on Saturday night in Mackey Arena.

It wasn't just the Nebraska game, but so much that came before, all the key plays he's made throughout this Big Ten season.

When Purdue wasn't winning, he was just the unathletic gym rat who can't score, people said, and part of the problem, not the solution; now that Purdue is winning, hey, look Eifert is pretty good suddenly.

Thing is, Eifert didn't change.

Perception did, and conditions around him did.

All along, Eifert has been that little L-shaped (or 7-shaped, if you're holding it upside down) elbow wrench that came with the TV stand you bought at Target that one time.

When you first pull it out of the box and look it over, it doesn't seem particularly useful. And when Eifert was out there diving for loose balls, setting good screens, making simple passes and running around like a fool covering other peoples' bases on defense in November and December, you might have looked at him the same way and been inclined to just throw him in a drawer somewhere.

But now that things are locking into place for Purdue, it's just much more apparent how much that stuff matters, how much his role means to Purdue's structural soundness. TVs are heavy, you know.

And Eifert's not alone in that dynamic. Yes, some Purdue players have improved through the course of the season, but the reality too is that some have been playing roles — acting as pieces – this whole time, and now for a bunch of reasons, those pieces are making more and more sense together, the finished product taking shape.

Purdue's gotten better, way better.

I'm not sure Eifert has, at least from Day 1 this season to now.

He's doing what he's always done.

It's just taken winning to shine a light on it.

Jeff Brohm has this sort of dynamic where people want to play for him, and want to work for him, a very good thing, obviously.

But to the latter point, as Purdue continues its upward trajectory and his reputation continues to grow in a landscape where people are always looking to hire the guy behind the guy, people are going to want the people who work for him, too, as this week's news of Derrick Jackson's departure to be defensive coordinator at Northern Illinois reminds.

The days of Purdue's best and brightest being picked apart by lateral moves — by two-thirds-more-money-for-two-thirds-of-the-responsibility opportunities elsewhere — are over.

Purdue has insulated itself against such things now. It's a much better place to work than it was just three years ago, its compensation is up to code and its administration's reputation strong, a significant HR firewall in place now.

But, Purdue will lose coaches on their way up, like Jackson, whose move to a coordinator role at Northern Illinois marks a step toward becoming a head coach. When you hire good coaches who are motivated to move up, such is life.

Some Purdue assistants will get looks for head coaching jobs, or NFL jobs. Position coaches may draw coordinator opportunities elsewhere.

With it comes another test of Purdue's increasing strength as a program.

It's imperative that any head coach be able to surround himself with the right people, empower them, retain them as long as can be, and then ultimately replace them.

That comes to the forefront when a coach brings the majority of his staff from his last stop — Jackson wasn't one of the Western Kentucky carry-overs — and starts to lose those comfort-zone types.

I'm in no way comparing Purdue and Alabama, Jeff Brohm and Nick Saban, but one of the most remarkable things about Saban is how he's been able to keep Alabama as Alabama despite losing coaches, coordinators actually, every single year.

If Purdue gets to that point, then that will be a damn good problem to have, because it would mean it's won a hell of a lot of games, but in the meantime, staff continuity could present a challenge here and there.

Brohm's done everything right at Purdue thus far. His ability to hire the right people to replace those carried by this program's success to bigger and better for themselves will be another test.

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