Three Thoughts is a new feature GoldandBlack.com will run every Monday morning in-season.

To me, Purdue's overtime loss to Ohio State at the Big Ten Tournament on Friday raised considerable red flags about the Boilermakers heading into the most important game(s) of the season, and Matt Painter may share that thought, since he called his team's splintering on defense in the first half "a little alarming."

The second half showed the best of Purdue, the form that's carried It to unexpected heights this season, but the first half was uncharacteristically wretched, one of Purdue's three worst halves of the year, right alongside the second half at Miami and first half at Michigan State. Difference is, it's now March, the precise moment Painter had hoped his team would be Its sharpest. It had won five games in a row prior to Ohio State and gotten — and remained — whole for an extended stretch, now that Sasha Stefanovic has rounded back Into form, his absence having perhaps helped Jaden Ivey's rapid ascent along.

The performance against the Buckeyes in those first 20 minutes — and the final five — were reason for angst. Purdue has to be better defensively, on the defensive glass and In taking care of the basketball.

But all that said, one massive development may have unfolded in defeat.