The Purdue Boilermakers are a fun team to watch, even if their obvious lacks make them stumble sometimes. For the second game in a row, Matt Painter’s team has lost to an SEC opponent falling 87-69 to Auburn in Birmingham before Christmas. While the coach knows that loss was in part due to the Tigers being more experienced than the current Boilermakers, one analyst wonders if a transfer could have solved all their problems.

On The Field of 68: After Dark, host Rob Dauster asks what the current Purdue team could have looked like had they stolen one player who is currently wreaking havoc in Kentucky. “I think there’s one very specific player that Purdue could have added from the portal this year if they had gone into the portal that would fix a lot of the problems that they have this season and that would be Lamont Butler.”

Butler was one guy who used to give coach Mark Pope a lot of trouble, so when he went into the transfer portal, Pope knew he had to make him join the Wildcats. Before UK, Butler was at San Diego State and Pope revealed how he used to lose sleep over Kentucky vs. San Diego State games, trying to strategize and not let Butler steal their ball.

He is averaging 14 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 4.2 assists with the Wildcats this season, earning SEC Player of the Week honors just days ago. Now someone like that at Purdue?

Dauster thinks it could have worked, “If you took Lamont Butler and you put him on this Purdue roster, I think Purdue would be looking at being a top 8 team in America as opposed to – ‘Yeah they’ll be good in the Big 10 but I can’t really see them doing any damage once you get out of the Big 10.”

In contrast, Terrence Oglesby doesn’t like this formation, “I’m not sure I agree with that one. Some rim protection would be nice because defensively, not great, guys, not great.” He goes on to point out how their block percentage is down in the 290s nationally and how their position-based defense doesn’t always work.

Regardless, the Boilermakers are ranked 21 as of week 8 with a decent 8-4 record. But no doubt the difficult non-conference schedule has also played into their games so far this season. What coach Painter doesn’t want is for that to hold his team back. He wants them to get better and wants to make his coaching ways better and deal with it.

Matt Painter won’t be looking for an easy schedule

The non-conference part of the season is already over and for many, it was harder than expected. Purdue was one of them; even if their young team is as talented as they come, they had a hard time against veterans like the Auburn Tigers. But coach Matt Painter knows it’s all a learning opportunity to improve rather than complain.

“You want to play a great schedule to figure your team out, figure out what you need to work on, but you also want to win. So, we’ve done it the three previous years and were undefeated in all three nonconferences and played a lot of difficult people. I don’t want to go away from that standard. This is where we are. Deal with it. Get better as a coach, get better as a player, get better collectively as a team,” he said after the loss to Auburn.

Painter considers the current Boilermakers a good team, but maybe not a great one. They still need to work out the kinks so that come March, they can stand proud. And as the analysts advise, maybe getting stronger defensively will be the first step!