MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — For as powerful of a program Purdue has built, the Boilermakers have had a rather tenuous relationship with the postseason.

Their last date was as painful as it gets, an ignominious defeat by undersized Farleigh Dickinson that went down as just the second time in NCAA Tournament history a No. 1 seed lost in the first round in 152 games against 16th seeds.

Every year brings a fresh opportunity, though.

This team still has Zach Edey, the 7-foot-4 picture of dominance in the paint, and the bulk of the same core that led the Boilermakers to that lofty perch they were knocked from by FDU.

After repeating as the Big Ten regular season champion, third-ranked Purdue begins the conference tournament this week with plenty to prove, starting in the quarterfinals Friday.

“I just want to win championships. Championships convey something. That’s the biggest thing,” said Edey, who returned for a fourth year of college to do just that. “I think whenever you have the opportunity to win a championship, you want to capitalize on it.”

Michigan State (1999 and 2000) is the only team since the Big Ten Tournament began in 1998 to win outright regular season and tournament titles in consecutive years. Ohio State won back-to-back conference tournaments as the No. 1 seed in 2010 and 2011, but the Buckeyes finished in a three-way tie for first place in the 2009-10 regular season.

The Boilermakers are eager to match that feat by the Spartans, who went on to win the national championship in 2000.

Cutting down the nets at Target Center in Minneapolis, a first-time host for the Big Ten Tournament, would not only put Purdue in position for the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA Tournament but give the Boilermakers a boost entering the Big Dance.

"It’s new to me, but it’s like routine for them,” said guard Lance Jones, who transferred from Southern Illinois this season. “We’re going to go out there with the right mindset, playing to the best of our abilities and trying to win the championship.”

BRACKET RACKET

Like Purdue, Illinois, Nebraska and Northwestern earned double byes and will enter the bracket in Friday's quarterfinals.

No. 5 seed Wisconsin is the only other team that appears safely in the NCAA Tournament regardless of results this week, even though the Badgers — who were ranked as high as sixth in The Associated Press Top 25 for the week of Jan. 29 — have lost eight of 11 games.

The second-round game Thursday between No. 7 seed Iowa and 10th-seeded seed Ohio State provides an opportunity for one of those teams to play their way into the field of 68 with a win or two or three.

ANOTHER MILESTONE

No. 8 seed Michigan State, which has lost four of five games, sure could use a win over ninth-seeded Minnesota to stay on the safe side of the NCAA Tournament bubble. That would set up a meeting in the quarterfinals with Purdue, and allow Tom Izzo to coach his 1,000th career game.

Izzo is in his 29th season, all at Michigan State. The five current Division I coaches with longer tenures all have been at three or more schools.

STAYING HOME

Minnesota went 9-11 for its most conference wins in five years, avoiding a bottom-four finish and a game in the first round for the first time since 2019 in a season of progress under third-year coach Ben Johnson. The improvement was well-timed for the Gophers, who get the Big Ten Tournament in their backyard for the first time.

Minnesota is the No. 9 seed and will play No. 8 seed Michigan State in the second round on Thursday. The Gophers are 3-1 against the Spartans in the Big Ten Tournament. The teams split their regular-season matchups.

“Hopefully we get a great turnout,” Johnson said. “We want to play our best basketball and stay in this thing as long as we can.”

Indianapolis has hosted the Big Ten Tournament 13 times, and Chicago has had 11. The other sites were New York (2018) and Washington (2017).

RECORD WATCH

Edey, the AP Player of the Year in 2023 and now a two-time AP Big Ten Player of the Year, needs 42 points to become Purdue’s all-time leading scorer. He would pass Rick Mount (2,323 points from 1967-70). Edey already owns the school record for rebounds in a career (1,211).

Edey and Painter give Purdue two of the top AP Big Ten honors. Illini's Domask newcomer of year

Purdue's Zach Edey repeated as Associated Press Big Ten player of the year Tuesday and Matt Painter of the Boilermakers is coach of the year for the second straight season.

Edey was the unanimous choice for top honors in balloting by 14 journalists who cover the conference. Illinois' Marcus Domask is the newcomer of the year.

Painter, who shared coach of the year with Northwestern's Chris Collins in 2023, edged out Nebraska's Fred Hoiberg by one vote for this year's coaching award.

The 7-foot-4, 300-pound Edey leads the Big Ten with 24.2 points and 11.7 rebounds per game and is shooting a conference-best 61.7% from the field. Since 1992-93, Edey is among three players nationally with two seasons of 700 points and 350 rebounds. He's the only player in Big Ten history to accomplish that.

Northwestern's Boo Buie joins Edey as unanimous picks to the AP All-Big Ten first team. Buie is averaging 18.9 points per game and has improved his 3-point percentage from 31.8% last year to 43.1% to rank second in the Big Ten.

Joining Edey and Buie on the first team are Purdue's Braden Smith and Illinois' Terrence Shannon Jr. and Domask.

Domask, a graduate transfer from Southern Illinois, started all 31 games and scored in double figures in 21 of his last 22 games, including all 10 Big Ten road games.

Painter led Purdue to 28 regular-season wins and 17 conference wins, both school records. The Boilermakers also have won two straight Big Ten regular-season titles and will go for back-to-back conference tournament championships this week in Minneapolis.

Hoiberg's Cornhuskers, picked 12th in the Big Ten in the preseason, finished third for their highest conference finish since 1992-93. The Huskers' 22 wins are tied for second on the school's all-time list.

FIRST TEAM

u-Guard — Boo Buie, Northwestern, Gr., 6-2, 180, Albany, New York.

Guard — Braden Smith, Purdue, So., 6-0, 175, Westfield, Indiana.

Forward — Terrence Shannon Jr., Illinois, Sr., 6-6, 225, Chicago.

Forward - Marcus Domask, Illinois, Gr., 6-6, 215, Waupon, Wisconsin.

u-Center — Zach Edey, Purdue, Sr., 7-4, 300, Toronto.

—“u” denotes unanimous selection.

SECOND TEAM

Guard — Jahmir Young, Maryland, Sr., 6-1, 185, Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

Guard — Tyson Walker, Michigan State, Gr., 6-1, 185, Westbury, New York.

Forward — Dawson Garcia, Minnesota, Jr., 6-11, 230, Savage, Minnesota.

Foward — Coleman Hawkins, Illinois, Sr., 6-10, 230, Sacramento, California.

Center - Kel'el Ware, Indiana, So, 7-0, 242, North Little Rock, Arkansas.

INDIVIDUAL HONORS

Coach of the year — Matt Painter, Purdue.

u-Player of the year — Zach Edey, Purdue.

Newcomer of the year — Marcus Domask, Illinois.

AP ALL-BIG TEN VOTING PANEL

Nick Bahe, Fox Sports; Mike DeCourcy, Sporting News, Fox Sports; Dave Eanet, WGN Radio (Chicago); Brian Fonseca, New Jersey Advance Media; Marcus Fuller, Minneapolis Star Tribune; Adam Jardy, Columbus Dispatch; Stephen Jones, Penn State Sports Network; Andrew Kahn, MLive.com (Ann Arbor, Michigan); Wilson Moore, Omaha (Nebraska) World-Herald; Zach Osterman, Indianapolis Star; Jim Polzin, Madison.com (Madison, Wisconsin); Scott Richey, Champaign (Illinois) News-Gazette; Dylan Sinn, Fort Wayne (Indiana) Journal Gazette; Tyler Tachman, Des Moines (Iowa) Register.

A century before Caitlin Clark, 6-on-6 basketball players in Iowa were blazing trail for her

Imagine Iowa star Caitlin Clark playing a basketball game where the rules allowed her just two dribbles before she had to pass or shoot and it was illegal for her to cross the half-court line.

For most of the 20th century, this was girls basketball in Clark's native state of Iowa. The game was 6-on-6, with three girls on one side of the court playing defense and three on the other side playing offense.

The rules might seem archaic now, if not blatantly sexist, but it was popular: Girls high school games filled gyms to capacity in many towns and state tournament tickets were resold at a premium, with the finals televised in nine Midwestern states.

“Sometimes it was so loud in our little gym that we couldn’t even hear the coach when we were in a huddle,” said Nancy Schmitz, who starred at Elk Horn-Kimballton in the 1960s when her name was Nancy Wolken. “It was really dynamic. A lot of screaming and hollering. And we all loved to play. I should have studied more, but I loved to play. Every game the gym was full.”

Iowa coach Lisa Bluder, associate head coach Jan Jensen and assistant Jenni Fitzgerald grew up playing 6-on-6 and Clark regularly gives a nod to her forebears in the sport.

“When I hear from a lot of people that played basketball, whether it was 6-on-6 however many years ago, I think they're blown away at where women's basketball is now and the platform we get to play on," Clark said. “That doesn't come if it's not for the people who came before us.”

How might Clark have fared

With her long-range shooting and nifty passing, Clark has become the face of women's basketball and is among the most popular athletes in the United States. She has averaged 31.9 points per game this season and passed Pete Maravich as the NCAA Division I all-time leading scorer.

Jensen, one of the state's all-time high school greats, said Clark would have been just as formidable in the six-girl game. Those shots from the perimeter and thread-the-needle passes would have been part of her game, her snaking drives to the basket not so much because of the two-dribble limit.

“She would have probably rewritten all the scoring records,” Jensen said. "Just scoring and focusing on the shooting aspect, that would have been right up her alley.”

Special rules for 6 vs. 6

Iowa high schools could choose to play 5-on-5 beginning in 1984, but many small schools kept playing 6-on-6 until 1993, only 23 years before Clark's freshman year at Dowling Catholic High in West Des Moines.

Chuck Offenburger, a retired Des Moines Register columnist and now an author who writes about Iowa news and culture on Offenburger.com, said immigrants from northern Europe who settled in the state in the 19th century believed strongly in physical fitness for both sexes.

Boys and girls worked alongside each other in the farm fields, and basketball was seen as a suitable competitive outlet for all. The caveat was that the sport was considered too strenuous for girls of that era, so special rules were made.

Even at that, a federal study on physical education in the 1920s put the kibosh on girls basketball in some areas of the state.

"The conclusion was that girls should not be involved in interscholastic and competitive athletics because it could affect their birthing capacity in later life,” Offenburger said. “The larger schools in the larger towns and cities just bought that lock, stock and barrel, and they ended their programs.”

Iowa girls basketball ahead of its time

In 6-on-6, players on the defensive side did not inbound the ball and bring it up after the opponent made a basket. Instead, the referee would throw the ball to half-court, where his partner would give it to a forward to initiate the next sequence of play.

Games could be fast-paced and high-scoring. Jensen averaged just under 66 points per game as a senior in 1987 at Elk Horn-Kimballton, and she went on to become a national scoring leader and All-American at Drake. Jensen's grandmother, Dorcas Anderson, was MVP of the 1921 state tournament for Audubon and nicknamed “Lotty” because she scored a lot of points.

In 1926, Irene Silka of Maynard became the first girl to score 100 points in a game. Denise Long of Union-Whitten was so dominant that she was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors in 1969 as a publicity stunt. Lynne Lorenzen of Ventura set the still-standing national career scoring record in 1987 (an astonishing 6,736 points).

Schmitz, who lives in La Vista, Nebraska, preceded Jensen by 20 years at Elk Horn and played on the 1967 team that was the school's first to reach the state tournament. Her black-and-orange No. 35 jersey, white Converse All-Star canvas high-tops and a scrapbook are among the memorabilia she's kept from her playing days.

“I was disappointed and a little sad when Iowa girls 6-on-6 basketball came to an end,” she said. “The game had a uniqueness all its own.”

Many states didn't offer girls sports until the 1970s. By then, girls basketball had been ingrained in Iowa's culture for more than a half-century, so Schmitz said she and her teammates didn't realize they were ahead of their time.

“I felt very blessed to have competed during that era,” she said, “and many of my teammates and I have known each other since grade school and still maintain those friendships and love to reminisce about our days together on the court.”