INDIANAPOLIS -- Purdue remembers the perils of having a No. 1 seed.
Last year, the top-seeded Boilermakers suffered a stunning upset to Fairleigh Dickinson, becoming just the second men's team to lose to a No. 16 seed since the NCAA tournament expanded. That loss has lingered into the background of the team's success this year, including a Big Ten regular-season championship.
On Friday, Purdue (29-4) will have a chance to fully overcome that loss when it faces 16-seed Grambling at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Center Zach Edey, the defending national player of the year, said the Boilermakers want to shift how the team is perceived with a win against the Tigers.
"I think a lot of people on this team have that game in the back of our mind, and that's not who we are," Edey said Thursday. "That's not what we're defined by. I think a lot of people on the team want to show that's not the truth."
Last March, Purdue became the first team to lose a 1-16 matchup in the tournament since UMBC's historic win over Virginia in 2018.
Grambling (20-14), the SWAC champion, overcame a 14-point deficit in the second half to beat Montana State in overtime, 88-81, in a First Four matchup Thursday.
If the Tigers can take down Purdue, Grambling will become the first historically Black college or university to win a round-of-64 game since Norfolk State beat Missouri in 2012. Grambling coach Donte' Jackson said the team arrived in Indianapolis around 2 a.m. Friday and started watching film around 4 a.m.
Jackson called Purdue's loss to Fairleigh Dickinson "old news" and noted the difference between the two programs with long odds. But that doesn't mean Jackson isn't taking note of how Purdue lost that game.
"I'm going to pick apart that film left and right and try to figure it out," Jackson said. "And I'll try to pick apart film from other, I guess, smaller colleges that Purdue will play."
On the other side of the matchup, Purdue sophomore guard Fletcher Loyer noted that Grambling likes to create turnovers and get in the paint.
"There's nothing we're looking past," Loyer said. "We're not looking anything past Grambling. Not thinking who we'd play next."
Boilermakers coach Matt Painter said his team has been "sitting in it" for the last year. The coach, who is in his 20th season overall and 19th with Purdue, said the Boilermakers have improved since that loss and are a more skilled team.
And from a competitive standpoint, he couldn't ask for anything more to be in position to rectify what happened in 2023.
"This is what you want," Painter said. "You want to get back to where you are. It's hard to get back in the position that we were. But we've been able to accomplish that, and now we're excited about playing."