Boiler (going) up

 I don't know where the Purdue men's basketball team will be ranked when they roll out the new polls this week. But I doubt it will begin with a "2".

Unless it IS "2". Or perhaps even "1."

Doubt that will happen, because the Boilermakers, ranked 24th going into the Phil Knight Legacy tournament, aren't going to make that astounding a leap. You could argue they should, but the logistics of the polls don't allow for it.

What the Boilers did, see, was go out to Portland, Ore., and win the whole deal.

Along the way, they obliterated West Virginia by 12, No. 6 Gonzaga by 18 and No. 8 Duke by 19.

Which is to say, this is some team Matt Painter has put together, the earliness of the returns notwithstanding.

The two freshman guards (Braden Smith and Homestead grad Fletcher Loyer) have been better than perhaps even Painter could have dreamed. Smith, lightly recruited by everyone but Painter, has emerged as the spiritual descendant of Scott Skiles at the point, fierce and and fearless and with court sense beyond his years. And Loyer has shown signs he's going to spend the next four years knocking down open threes.

Throw in Brandon Newman and Caleb Furst and Ethan Morton and Mason Gillis, and you've got a team with balance and poise. And we haven't even mentioned 7-4 center Zach Edey, the Project That Walks Like A Man.

Who you can now call the best low-blocks big man in the nation without sounding like an utter homer.

All them were present and accounted for as Purdue punished all comers over the weekend, including their presumed betters. This does not mean the Boilers aren't going to lay an egg or two in the next months; the season is long, roadies in the Big Ten are notoriously brutal, and everyone has off nights in the December-January-February slog. But they're not going to lay as many as the prognosticators presumed.

And with Indiana riding high behind All-American Trace Jackson-Davis and its own pair of stickout freshmen (Malik Reneau and Jalen Hood-Schifino), the IU-Purdue rivalry seems about to become epic again.

Can't wait. 

(Update: Purdue didn’t land at 1 or 2. But the Boilers did jump from No. 24 to No. 5.)