Minnesota looking for a different outcome vs. Purdue

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."

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.