Purdue finished last season with seven losses and has had a weird-and-rough start to this one, going 8-5 and hosting Minnesota for the Big Ten opener on the heels of three consecutive losses.

But there is one game, long before any of that that at least center Mo Walker thinks about a lot.

Last February, the Gophers fell to the Boilermakers, 77-74 in triple overtime. Walker, coming off the bench in those days, scored 17 points, but it wasn't enough. His and fellow center Elliott Eliason's assignment was then-sophomore AJ Hammons, who finished with 20 points and 14 rebounds.

"I remember that game," he said. "I definitely remember that game. That game and Northwestern at home (another one-possession loss) are the two games I definitely remember.

"We had a lot of chances to win it and we just didn't pull it off."

Point guard DeAndre Mathieu, meanwhile, has put it out of his mind. He didn't even remember that the Gophers had played three overtimes, he said.

"We're just ready for a new year," he said. "It's a new team and hopefully we'll have a different result this time."

Mathieu said the seniors had talked amongst themselves about the importance of snagging more road wins this season. Last year, Minnesota only won two conference games away from home -- at Northwestern and Penn State -- one of the deciding factors in the Gophers' ultimate absence from the NCAA tournament.

The other seniors mentioned they had never won at Purdue. Actually, Minnesota hasn't won at Purdue since 2005, when Dan Monson was the coach.

The Gophers snagged their first true road game earlier this month, when they walked away from Wake Forest with a victory in the ACC/ Big Ten Challenge, and they also took one vs. Georgia -- who coach Richard Pitino compared to Purdue in terms of physicality -- on a neutral court in the NIT Season Tipoff. But the conference schedule is a different story, he knows.

"How are they going to be when they hit adversity?" the coach said. "Will you still be able to be confident and play our game? I don't know ... we'll see now in the Big Ten because it's such a possession league. How are they going to deal with it now?"