Edey, Purdue power way into title game vs. UConn
Purdue kept its March Madness dream alive while snuffing out North Carolina State's, getting 20 points and 12 rebounds from Zach Edey in a 6350 victory Saturday that placed the Boilermakers a win from their first NCAA title.
N.C. State poked and jabbed at the 7-foot-4 Edey and gave him fits over his 40 minutes on the floor, but he still dominated the battle of big men against 6-9, 275-pound Wolfpack forward DJ Burns Jr., who labored to eight points and four assists. DJ Horne led the 11thseeded Wolfpack with 20 points.
Purdue (34-4) moves on to Monday night's final against defending champion UConn. N.C. State (26-15) ended its season two victories shy of a repeat of 1983, when it came through in nine straight must-win games to capture one of history's most unlikely titles.
Some might call this run by topseeded Purdue unlikely, too. The program is in the Final Four for the first time since 1980, only one season after becoming the second top seed to fall in the first round.
“It's the one we've been talking about all year,” said Edey, who came back for his senior season after last year's disappointment. “It's the one we've been talking about for four years now, to be able to play in that, accept that challenge.”
Edey and coach Matt Painter's team have swatted away every challenge thus far. They did it this time despite a three-point night from their second-leading scorer, Braden Smith, who shot 1 for 9 (but finished with eight rebounds and six assists).
He wasn't the only one who
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couldn't buy a bucket. The N.C. State team that outscored Duke 5537 after halftime in the Elite Eight shot 28.6% over the last 20 minutes this time — a cold spell that included open looks galore that simply would not fall.
“The biggest difference is that some of the shots we normally make we didn't make in that game,” Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts said. “It kinda got away from us a little bit.”
It made for some ugly hoops. At one stretch early in the second half, the teams missed 10 straight shots between them.
“Obviously it was one of those grinder games,” Painter said.
Castle while clamping down defensively in the second half of an 86-72 win over Alabama in the second Final Four game of the night.
The top-seeded Huskies (363) had put on a March Madness show before arriving in the desert, a stretch that included a 30-0 run in a decimation of Illinois in the Elite Eight.
This was more of a slow burn, with UConn withstanding an early wave of 3-pointers before holding the Crimson Tide (25-12) without a field goal during a fiveminute second-half stretch.
Next up for the Huskies will be what should be a much more physical test against Edey and Purdue in Monday's national championship game. UConn has its own accomplished big man in 7-2 Donovan Clingan, who finished with 18 points and four blocked shots.
“A battle of the giants. I think it's just great for college basketball. Us and Purdue have clearly been the two best teams in the country the last two years,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “I think it's just great for college basketball to get the two big dogs playing on Monday.”
Survive that matchup, and UConn will be the first repeat national champion since Florida in 2006-07.
“It feels good, but the job's not done yet,” Clingan said
The Huskies' Final Four win certainly wasn't as easy as the final score indicated.
Alabama held its own in the program's first Final Four appearance, going toe to toe with a team that trailed 28 total seconds in its first four NCAA Tournament games.