Purdue's stage is set - "I think it's time we redeem ourselves."

The mood in the Purdue locker room is impatient.

It's not the player's fault. The questions, they repeat over and over again as we make our way around the room, one nameless media member after another.

What's this game mean to you guys?

What's it feel like to be back here?

How is this team different than last year?

Do you think about it, the upset?

We're a little impatient, too. These questions, they haven't just occurred to us now. We have to ask them, mind you. We have to. The players, they have to answer them. That's the dance we've all signed up for.

But these are the same questions, in different forms, with different timing, that we've been asking since the end of last season when Purdue fell like a toppled giant to Fairleigh Dickinson.

The closer we have gotten to March Madness and the NCAA Tournament the more this impatience has grown.

Bravo for Purdue handling it as well as it has. If you want a reason to believe in them, look there. When Purdue could have gotten complacent, or distracted, it responded.

After each of its three regular season losses, Purdue has ran off at least a six game wining streak.

Purdue went into Illinois with every excuse to not win the game in hostile territories, but instead, Braden Smith responded, dropped in a three from 28 feet and Purdue claimed the Big Ten.

When Wisconsin came to Purdue to finish the season, Purdue had the conference wrapped up by two game. It didn't have to win except for pride. Pride carried Purdue to a regular season without a loss at home.

And in the Big Ten Tournament, well, Purdue nearly lost in a way it couldn't recover. For minutes, Smith laid on the floor behind the hoop, and it seemed like the season had gone up in smoke.

Instead, Smith returned and played in the next game, almost all of it.

And that was Purdue's last loss, one where its best player sat for most the first half, and Smith wasn't quite right, and the turnovers came back.

But what's different about this Purdue team? It responds. Even if the questions are the same ones its gotten all season.

"I think each time we lost, we kinda got a chance to watch," Camden Heide is telling me yesterday before shootaround at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. "Because when you win it's hard to see when you win."

There's noise, of course. Social media, friends, media, but even a redshirt freshman like Heide is a pro at handling it now.

"A lot of people have opinions," Heide says. "And that's just what they like to do."

Purdue has said all the right things all season. It said the right things last year, too, but it feels a bit different this year. It wasn't an act last year, but it's really not an act this year. Purdue's earned that by the way its handled what could have been a catastrophic off season.

"When you're in the bulk of it, you don't really think about the things that are going on around you and what people are saying," Trey Kaufman-Renn tells me a few minutes later. "I just know that the bus leaves at this time. We practice at this time, and I just try to get there at those times."

When Purdue gets its forty five minutes of practice time on Gainbridge Fieldhouse, it doesn't feel like last year. Last year, it was like what it's usually like, a glorified shootaround. There's little intensity, just jump shot after jump shot.

This year, it's only a few minutes in and both sides of the court is full of Boilers running through sets. Matt Painter is in the middle, fans filling up a respectable portion of the free to view experience, and he's yelling at his players. These details matter, even now.

This is where Purdue prefers to make its statement, on the court.

"Just excited," Braden Smith was telling me in the locker room, "Ready to prove people wrong, I guess." There's a little smile there from Smith, as cantankerous as he is.

It's a long season. It's a long time to be asked the same questions. Purdue has been scripted for long bits of the season. It's part of the process, the one it believes in, the one that's allowed them to get back to the #1 seed in the tournament for the second straight season.

But through that, there is emotion, and a purpose.

"It's got a little buzz to it," Loyer tells me just before they close off the locker room to media. "You feel it when you get to the hotel. You feel it when you get to the gym and you see all these cameras. It's definitely special."

But there's a couple minutes left and Zach Edey is back from the official podium and unusually alone in the locker room. He's about to put his headphones on. I get him for a few minutes, but I really only need his first answer.

"It's a shot at redemption for us," Edey says. "I think it's all this team has wanted. We waited a year for it. I think it's time we redeem ourselves."

The stage is set.