Gene Keady’s tomato-colored head nearly exploded during Wednesday night’s game – that’s the effect this year’s Northwestern basketball team has had on opposing coaches.

And after the final buzzer, his steaming cranium started spitting out predictions.

“If they win two of three, you’ll see them drop down into the 60s (in the Rating Percentage Index),” Keady said Wednesday after the Wildcats dropped his Boilermakers, 61-48.

The RPI, a ranking system that combines record and strength of schedule, is one of the factors the NCAA selection committee uses to make its Tournament invitations.

One team that will not receive an invitation is Purdue.

The Boilermakers stink. So Wednesday was a must-win situation for the Cats.

If NU hadn’t been able to pull out a victory, it likely would have ended any NCAA hopes that remain in Evanston, barring a series of improbable upsets.

Any NIT team would have beaten Purdue, and any NCAA team most certainly would have stomped the Boilermakers.

So NU has arrived at the final stretch of the season. Three games remain, all against teams almost certain to make the NCAA Tournament: Illinois on Saturday in Evanston, and Minnesota and Indiana on the road next week.

These three games are going to define the 2002 NU basketball team. Both Winston Blake and Tavaras Hardy acknowledged that fact after the game.

It would be stupid not to recognize that NU is having a good season – the Cats’ 16 wins are tied for second-best in school history.

But is this team going to create a new standard? Going to the NIT would be fun, but the Cats have a chance to take a step further and advance the NU basketball program.

By earning an NCAA bid, this could become the team against which all NU teams of the future will be judged.

To their credit, the Cats seem to recognize this. They haven’t appeared at all satisfied with having clinched the NIT. Seniors Hardy and Collier Drayton talk as if they’ve been working toward an NCAA bid all season.

And NU got another confidence boost Wednesday from Keady.

“I don’t have any crystal ball, (but) they’ve got the team to (make the NCAA),” Keady said. “Certainly, they’re good enough.”

He’s not the first to say it (Tom Izzo and Dusty Rychart come to mind). He won’t be the last. But NU won’t stand a chance when March 10 – Selection Sunday – rolls around, unless the Cats play their best in this key season-ending stretch.