After Purdue’s 88-80 loss to Notre Dame, Coach Matt Painter needed to do something. Purdue was just 6-5 at this point, having lost four of their last five games. There were no bad losses on the schedule, only neutral floor and road losses to quality opponents, but the Boilers were blowing leads and losing close games. Their bench was leaking points on one end and not scoring on the other.
So Coach Painter moved his junior transfer from Dartmouth into the starting lineup, pushing Matt Haarms back to the first off the bench spot he excelled at last year.