WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Brett Basanez swaggered out of the Northwestern locker room with his white baseball cap cocked slightly to the side. Confident as always, Basanez looked like he had just thrown three touchdowns and won the game, not fumbled three times and cost the Wildcats any chance of upsetting Purdue.

Ten minutes earlier, bruised and battered running back Jason Wright said he personally didn’t play well enough for NU to win. And linebacker Pat Durr blamed the defense for the 34-14 defeat — even though NU fought poor field position all game and still held the high-flying Boilermakers to less than 400 yards.

But Basanez, as he has done all season, shied away from putting the loss on his shoulders. In a season when NU’s defense is finally coming around, Basanez has gone from being one of the team’s best offensive players to a liability. And, for one of NU’s supposed leaders, Basanez has yet to step up and assume the blame for the Wildcats’ painfully inept passing game.

Last season Basanez beat out the strong-armed Tony Stauss to become Zak Kustok’s successor, and we were promised that his better mobility made him the right man for NU’s spread offense. Basanez won us over with an inspired effort in leading NU to three fourth-quarter touchdowns in an eventual loss to Minnesota.

NU’s offense has yet to click the way it did last year against the Gophers since Basanez left that game with a broken leg. Somehow the player who showed exceptional field vision and playmaking ability last season has regressed, now underthrowing open receivers and turning the ball over.

Basanez threw four interceptions — three on consecutive possessions in the fourth quarter — in a gift-wrapped victory for Air Force. He totaled an embarrassing 64 yards through the air in a shutout loss to Ohio State. Season total: three touchdowns, nine interceptions.

Bazanez’s piece de resistance of the 2003 season came in this Saturday’s debacle against Purdue. He dropped a perfect snap on the Cats’ first drive, then coughed up the ball again after being sacked on the next possession. Both fumbles gave the Boilermakers offense prime field position.

Two drives, two fumbles, and two Purdue scores. With 10 minutes gone in the game, NU waved goodbye to any chances of a third-straight Big Ten win. Basanez later added another fumble and showed his aversion to throwing downfield and inability to hit receivers in stride, but by then the game was well out of reach.

But the most frustrating aspect of Basanez’s recent struggles is that he hasn’t appeared to notice. Other players laud the sophomore’s unflappable confidence. Basanez said after Wright’s overtime touchdown run won the Indiana game that he expected coaches to give him the ball for the crucial play, and he was upset that Walker replaced him with Alexander Webb in the last five minutes against Purdue.

But after a game like Basanez had against the Boilermakers, admitting mistakes and accepting responsibility for a loss is a much-needed virtue on a team that still lacks leadership. Walker often talks about the team’s philosophy of “thumb-pointing” instead of finger-pointing, yet Basanez repeatedly deflects blame onto others. He conveniently uses the pronoun “we” — never “I” — to describe mistakes, as in “We need to work on ball security this week” or “We didn’t play well enough to win.”

It makes you wonder if there’s such thing as being too confident in your abilities. Basanez seems to be oblivious to the fact that the Cats’ offensive ineptitude is a direct result of his play, or that NU beat Indiana and Wisconsin in spite of his struggles.

Those two wins put talk of a quarterback controversy on the back burner, although Walker has shown no signs that Basanez’s job is in danger. Webb, a redshirt freshman, has seen only garbage time this season, and despite his 4.5-speed it seems he has yet to impress Walker with his arm enough to pose a threat to Basanez.

So we’re stuck with you, Baz, at least for this season. Here’s hoping Ashton Kutcher and friends pop out from behind a curtain to reveal you “Punk’d” all of us, and start playing the way you did at the end of last season.

Until then, when you screw up, admit it and suffer the consequences. Don’t blame your teammates for not falling on your fumbles.