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By the time all the scrapping and scratching and diving on the floor was over, it felt like a shame that both these teams weren’t moving onto the Final Four.
Just don’t expect Purdue University to feel bad about it.
Boilermakers big man Zach Edey went for a career high 40 points Sunday to muscle Purdue within two victories of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament title for the first time since 1980 with a 72-66 victory over Dalton Knecht and his never-say-quit Tennessee teammates.
The 7-foot-4 Edey, a unanimous AP All-American, didn’t even need a ladder to help cut down the net in Detroit after edging out Knecht, another All-American, who finished with 37 points.
The game’s top two players, and their teams, went back and forth all day. How close was it? There were six ties and eight lead changes. With five minutes left and the score knotted at 58, both players had scored 31 points on 12 field goals. According to OptaSTATS, this was the first time opposing players scored more than half their squads’ points in an NCAA Tournament game.
“You’re not trying to take away 100 percent, you’re trying to take away maybe 80 percent of what he’s trying to get accomplished,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said of Knecht. “But we don’t take Zach for granted. He could’ve scored 50 tonight if he’d made his free throws.”
Edey missed eight of his 22 attempts from the foul line. One of those misses sparked the play of the game. After Tennessee grabbed the rebound and worked the ball downcourt, Edey swatted away Knecht’s layup attempt as he drove to the basket while trailing by five with 33 seconds left.
It was Edey’s only block of the game, and it put an end to the Vols’ desperate comeback hopes.
“I was just trying to get back, and make my presence felt on the defensive end of the court, and make up for it,” Edey said.
Top-seeded Purdue (33-4) set aside last year’s grand disappointment—a first-round loss as a No. 1 seed—to book the trip to Glendale, Arizona. On Saturday, Edey and the Boilermakers will face big man DJ Burns Jr. and 11th-seeded North Carolina State in the national semifinals.
“We had to take it,” Painter said of the abuse that came last year. “Sometimes when you sit in it and you’re honest with yourself and you take it, some great things can happen.”
Tennessee (27-9), a No. 2 seed, was seeking its first Final Four trip, and Vols coach Rick Barnes was denied the second trip of his 38-year career to college basketball’s promised land.
This was a slugfest of a game, a welcome break from the action over the first two weeks of a March Madness that has been more sleepy than mad. It was played in front of an ear-splitting crowd packed with Purdue fans who made their way up to Detroit from Indiana.
Looking for history
Purdue fans were looking for history, and they got it—along with the game ball that Boilermakers guard Fletcher Loyer chucked about 20 rows into the crowd when the buzzer went off.
The school’s 87-year-old former coach, Gene Keady, watched from the stands—then, afterward, came onto the floor to receive a piece of the freshly cut net from Edey.
“It shows people if you do things the right way, it will pay off,” the ex-coach told The Associated Press.
Keady never made the Final Four in his 25 years as Purdue head coach. He made the Elite Eight twice in 17 NCAA tourney appearances. His predecessor, Lee Rose, took Purdue to the Final Four in 1980, one season before Keady took over the program.
In that tournament, the Boilers lost to 67-62 to UCLA at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis before topping the University of Iowa 75-58 in the consolation game (which is no longer played) to finish third in the tourney. Louisville, coached by Denny Crum, beat UCLA, coached by Larry Brown, to take the title.
Purdue’s only other appearance in the Final Four came under Coach George King in 1969 in Louisville when it lost 92-72 in the title game to UCLA, coached by John Wooden and led by center Lew Alcindor.
At times, Sunday’s game looked like the sort Keady might have coached back in the ’80s and ’90s.
Purdue pounded the ball to Edey in the post, and though the grabby, swatty UT defense made some inroads—even blocking two of his shots—foul trouble piled up for Tennessee as Edey wore them down. He finished 13-of-21 from the floor.
Barnes refused to make an issue out of Edey’s 22 free throws or the final foul tally: Tennessee 25, Purdue 12.
“He’s a difficult guy to guard against, but he’s a difficult guy for referees to officiate, too,” Barnes said. “He’s a hard guy to do that with because he’s a unique guy in terms of how he plays.”
Meanwhile, the 3-point arc that was six years from coming into existence at Purdue’s last trip to the Final Four was barely a factor for the Boilermakers. They went 3 for 15 from long range.
And yet, it was a trio of 3-point attempts that turned this game. Knecht missed a pair of open looks, first with his team trailing by three at the 3:09 mark, then again on the next possession when down by six.
In between, Lance Jones spotted up from the corner for a 3 that gave Purdue a 66-60 lead.
The coup de grace came with Tennessee trying to carve into a 69-64 deficit. Knecht drove down the lane and went up, but Edey, who played just a few seconds short of the full 40 minutes, scooted over and cleanly swatted the shot.
“A great play, you’ve got to give him credit,” Barnes said.
Knecht finished 14 of 31 from the floor. After making his first four 3-pointers, he went 2 for 8.
“I don’t think I put the team on my back,” Knecht said. “I think all of us carried each other. I think every single one of us did what we needed to do. At the end of the day, they were just the better team.”
More rare company
Edey is the first player with 40-plus points and at least 16 rebounds in an NCAA Tournament game since Bo Kimble of Loyola Marymount had 45 points and 18 rebounds in a 1990 contest against New Mexico State.
All-Midwest Region
Edey was named the Midwest’s most outstanding player. Joining him on the all-region team were Knecht, Braden Smith (Purdue), Baylor Scheierman (Creighton) and Zakai Zeigler (Tennessee).
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It’s always good to see any team from Indiana do well. A Purdue win is a win for the entire state and just shows the rest of the country that Indiana is the true basketball state. We breed and live basketball.
It doesn’t show that, because we don’t. What hyperbole.
If you look at the video, Loyer threw the ball in the air as time expired, a Tennessee player caught it and he chucked it into the stands. Congratulations to the Boilers!