What Does History Tell Us About Losing Streaks & How Purdue Responds?

There haven’t been many but there is history to show what might happen

The Purdue Boilermakers are at another crossroads in their season following three consecutive losses in B1G play. After a remarkable start to the B1G season once the calendar turned to 2025 where the Boilers had run off a record of 10-1, Purdue has lost three consecutive games B1G games for the first time since the 2019-2020 season.

Back to back losses are something that hasn’t happened all that often in the last several years, but three straight is even more rare under Head Coach Matt Painter. In his twenty years at Purdue, the Boilers have just seven seasons in which the Boilers have lost three consecutive times in conference play. That is a testament to the consistency of the program under his direction. With just four games left in the regular season, what can we possibly learn from that history to provide some direction for how this season may play out?

Let’s take a look at the history:

2019-2020 Season:

The Boilers would lose four straight B1G conference games when they were beat by Penn State, OSU, Wisconsin, and Michigan to drop their overall record to 14-14. Ahead of that, the Boilers looked like they may have been setting themselves up for a strong final push into the conference tourney with three straight victories. The Boilers would gain a sweep of the Hoosier and beat #18 Iowa on the road to get to 16-14 and get themselves back into bubble discussion, but would lose the final regular season game to Rutgers in OT. This season would end up being cut short due to the Covid pandemic but it likely would have meant Purdue not making the NCAA Tourney.

2017-2018 Season:

This was about as strong of a start to a season as the Boilermakers had ever enjoyed in program history. Following a horrendous early season tourney that found the Boilers taking on the Arizona Wildcats in the last place game after they had lost back to back games to Tennessee and Western Kentucky, the Boilers would rip off 19 straight wins to get to 23-2 overall. The Boilers had run themselves to #3 overall in the country but would lose three straight to OSU, MSU, and Wisconsin and lose the B1G regular season title by one game (MSU: 18-2). Purdue would end up losing to Michigan in the finals of the BTT, who would eventually make the National Championship game and also lose in the Sweet 16 to Texas Tech following Isaac Haas being lost to a broken elbow.

2014-2015 Season:

Probably the worst three game stretch in recent Purdue history, the Boilers lost to a bad Vanderbilt team, in Indy to #21 Notre Dame by 31 points, and inside Mackey to Gardner Webb. The Boilers would end up 12-6 in the B1G and 21-13 overall before losing to Cincinnati in the NCAA Tourney in one of the most dramatic meltdowns in Purdue tourney history. The Boilers led by 7 with just 48.5 seconds left before the Bearcats ended up tying it and winning in overtime to 9th seeded Purdue.

2013-2014 Season:

This is the season that Rapheal often refers to along with Matt Painter as this was probably the closest he came to being fired by Purdue. Following a poor 2012-2013 season (more on that next), Purdue would end the season with another losing record at 15-17 overall and struggle to just 5-13 in the B1G. In fact, the Boilers would end the regular season going 2-11 with a four game and six game losing streak in the B1G. The Boilers would finish their season to Ohio State in the B1G Tourney for the longest losing streak of Matt Painter’s career at seven straight.

2012-2013 Season:

The bad season proceeding the nightmare 2013-2014 season, the Boilers would lose three straight to #12 MSU, Illinois, and get blown out by #1 IU. The rest of the season would simply alternate wins and losses before Purdue would get beat in the CBI and finish the season 16-18.

2009-2010 Season:

Another instance of a really strong season that featured a major bump in the road with three straight losses. After the Boilers started off the season winning 14 straight, the Boilers would lose to Minnesota, OSU, and Northwestern before winning another 10 straight games. This is the forever ‘what if’ season for the Boilers as they lost Robbie Hummel to his first knee injury at Minnesota and would eventually lose to Duke in the Sweet 16 to finish 29-6 overall.

2005-2006 Season:

The ultimate throw away season as this was Matt Painter’s first season as head coach for the Boilers. In what should have been a solid roster, Painter lost both Carl Landry and David Teague to knee injuries for the season. That led to a depleted roster as losing streaks of three, four, four, and five to end the season just 9-19 and 3-13 in the B1G.

What Does It All Mean?

I’m not sure there is any revelation that can be made from this information, but what it does show is that Purdue has had some of the best teams in its’ entire history experience losing streaks like the one the Boilers have suffered. In all honesty, the Boilers’ three losses have come to teams ranked 20th, 16th, and 14th and have not really come in the form of a blowout unless you consider the Wisconsin game a blowout.

What we can see is that Matt Painter has experienced both the losing streaks of a poor team and the losing streaks of elite teams and has found a way to continue to improve those teams to maximize their abilities in that season. It isn’t as if Purdue is playing terribly in this current stretch and the issues they face are correctable. They also may simply be experiencing the rigors of a long and physical B1G season that has seen their opponents receive the most amount of time off before playing them than any other team.

Purdue’s schedule does slow down just a bit in these final four games as they will have had five days to rest ahead of their trip to Indiana and will then will play back to back home games before their final trip to Illinois. If Purdue is going to have hope for a B1G Title and grabbing an important stretch of rest ahead of the NCAA Tourney, they’ll need to bounce back and grab four straight victories. A double bye in the B1G Tourney would mean an important seven day rest, something that it seems the team needs more than anything else.