The Weekly Word is GoldandBlack.com's weekly, obviously, column covering Purdue football, basketball and recruiting, as well as college sports issues, the true meaning of life, or whatever other topics might come to mind in a given week.
WAS A CORNER TURNED?
Much like last season, Purdue played a bunch of good teams early in its season and much like last season, lost a bunch of games it could have won, at least prior to Wednesday night.
It was then that the Boilermakers obliterated the reigning national champs for the second time in about eight months, first Villanova, then Virginia, continuing a solid little run Purdue has going against bluebloods or otherwise prominent programs.
Last year, Purdue turned a corner, basically, in January, went on to win the Big Ten and damn near make the Final Four.
Hindsight being what it is, those early season losses probably should have been viewed more as glimpses of Purdue's potential than failures, a positive that the Boilermakers were good enough to win at Florida State, for example, and just didn't. No one's going to view things that way in the moment, but over time, that part of it has crystalized.
