There is often times a fine line between panic and concern.<\/p>\n
Purdue players were all concerned for CJ Cox as he lay on the floor, uncharacteristically expressive as he cursed and yelled in pain after going down with a leg injury on a fast break lay up attempt.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt brought us together,\u201d Jack Benter said afterwards in the Purdue locker room.<\/p>\n
This is a familiar place for Purdue. Not the state of panic or concern, for the most part, Purdue has been able to avoid the bad luck of injury over the last few seasons. But for the third straight season, Purdue got to sit in a locker room, exhale, and know it would make it to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
Even if it\u2019s the expectation for these seniors, it is still a welcomed reprieve. These seniors were there sitting in the locker room when its season ended without warning against a #16 seed.<\/p>\n
As someone associated with the team this weekend, that PTSD doesn\u2019t ever really go away.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s part of why the image, the sound, of CJ Cox laying on his back, screaming in agony was so upsetting in the moment. Purdue fans still feel the touch of a curse laid decades ago.<\/p>\n
There was never a roar from the crowd as Cox emerged from the tunnel, fine, and waiting at the scorer\u2019s table to check back in.<\/p>\n
Cox did emerge, but with a grimace, flexing his knee, sitting down on the bench as Gicarri Harris took over the role as defensive stopper and big bucket shooter in the second half.<\/p>\n
There is an even finer line between exaltation and exhale. Purdue fans might have lived the high-wire act as the scoreboard settled and Purdue advanced to the Sweet 16 after a 79-69. It\u2019s hard to cheer when you\u2019re holding your breath.<\/p>\n
Cox, once again, proved his mettle. He knocked down three straight threes in the second half to take Miami\u2019s biggest lead of the game back to a tie just before half.<\/p>\n
Cox is Purdue\u2019s best defensive player, the quiet unassuming fifth option on offense with assassin like tendencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s their passion,\u201d Head Coach Matt Painter says after the game about his team. \u201cThese guys have put in – I know ccoaches talk about it, but they\u2019ve put in so much in all areas to be the best that they can be. And that\u2019s how you end up getting a lot of victories because you have really good players that are committed.\u201d<\/p>\n
With every CJ Cox moment, it\u2019s good to remember that he was a happy accident for Purdue.<\/p>\n
CJ Cox the player caught the attention of Matt Painter. CJ Cox the person convinced Painter to offer him.
There is a fine line between triumph and tragedy.<\/p>\n
Cox was there in the locker room, waiting for media, ice wrapped around his need. Between the triumph, his diagnosis was hyper extended knee. This isn\u2019t final. Purdue has yet to do any imaging and will look at it more tomorrow, but for the moment, it seemed that Purdue avoided tragedy.
Purdue\u2019s third Sweet 16 trip in a row sits on the shoulder of a baffling and often times befuddling regular season that saw a senior led class lose big game after big game, mostly at Mackey Arena, and it seemed that Purdue was heading towards another March of disappointment.
But instead, Purdue flipped a switch, one it seemingly knew was there all along in the Big Ten Tournament. It ripped through four games in four days, beating Michigan in the finale for good measure, and carried that through to the first two games in the NCAA Tournament.
The finest line of them all might be between pressure and expectation.<\/p>\n
Pressure is the thing you feel when you\u2019re not prepared. This Purdue team, through trial, through a collection of experiences from seniors, who stayed, earned their own expectations for themselves.<\/p>\n
And now that we\u2019re in March, they\u2019re living up to them.
Purdue moves on to the Sweet Sixteen in San Jose to play Texas next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is often times a fine line between panic and concern. Purdue players were all concerned for CJ…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,16677],"class_list":{"0":"post-673495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab","13":"tag-purdue-mens-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116275508931622555","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}