Boilers Open Season Monday in Las Vegas vs. #15 Gonzaga

BOILER NOTES
• Purdue owns a 107-21 record in season openers, including a 20-1 mark under head coach Matt Painter. The Boilermakers have won 13 straight openers by an average of 29.7 points per game.
• Purdue is college basketball’s 10th-winningest program in the country, entering the season with an “official” NCAA all-time record of 1,983 - 1,101 (.643). 
• Purdue will battle a ranked team in the season opener for just the sixth time in school history, last facing No. 12 Memphis in the 1995-96 opener (L, 91-75). Other games against ranked teams came in Nov. 1992 (W, 73-69 vs. #16 Connecticut), Nov. 1976 (L, 97-80 to #13 Alabama), Nov. 1968 (L, 94-82 to #1 UCLA) and Dec. 1967 (L, 73-71 to #1 UCLA).
• Purdue hasn’t been on the road in a season opener since the 2020-21 CoVid season, when it defeated Liberty, 77-64, in the Space Coast Classic in Melbourne, Florida. This will mark just the second time Purdue has been away from Mackey Arena in an opener under Matt Painter.
• For the first time since the 2014-15 season, Purdue did not have a player voted to the preseason All-Big Ten Team.
• Matt Painter (501) is just 12 wins from passing his mentor and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Gene Keady (512) on the school’s all-time wins list. The earliest that Painter could pass Keady would be Dec. 11, vs. Tennessee.
• With Painter reaching 500 wins last season against Miami, Fla., in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Purdue became the second school in NCAA history to have two coaches with 500 victories (Kansas - Bill Self, Phog Allen).
• Painter and Mark Few have combined for 1,298 victories, 44 NCAA Tournament berths, 22 Sweet 16 appearances and 34, 25-win seasons.
• If the exhibition games are any indication on the starting lineup, Purdue could start a lineup that does not feature a player from the state of Indiana. The last time that happened came on Feb. 11, 1982, vs. Ohio State (Joe Gampfer - Ohio; Mike Scearce - Kentucky; Russell Cross - Illinois; Keith Edmonson - Texas; Kevin Stallings - Illinois). More research is needed, but it appears that season is the only year since 1959-60 that didn’t have an Indiana standout in the starting lineup.
• Caden Pierce will have a mini-reunion in Las Vegas. Pierce and Gonzaga’s Braden Huff were high school classmates (as well as Minnesota’s Bobby Durkin) at Glenbard West High (Ill.), leading the Hilltoppers to the 2022 Illinois Class 4A state title with a 37-1 record (lone loss: California’s Sierra Canyon, 67-64). Pierce was also a teammate at Princeton with Gonzaga guard Xaivian Lee, helping the Tigers to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 in 2023. The pair were teammates during the 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, guiding the Tigers to a 66-25 record.
• Purdue has had a consensus first- or second-team All-American in eight of the past 10 seasons despite never enrolling a top-30 recruiting class and just one top-30 prospect during that span. This year’s freshmen class broke the trend, ranked in the top 15 nationally.
• Purdue has sold out its ticket allotment for the upcoming season, with the exception of the Cal Baptist (Dec. 21) and USC (Dec. 30) games. Purdue enters the year with the fourth-longest sellout streak in America at 106 games.