Purdue, UConn in for big finish
Edey leads Boilermakers past Cinderella Wolfpack
Purdue 63 N.C. State 50
GLENDALE, Ariz. — 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 63-50 victory Saturday that placed the Boilermakers a win from their first NCAA title.
N.C. State poked and jabbed at the 7-foot-4inch 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 8 points and four assists. DJ Horne led the Wolfpack with 20 points.
Purdue (34-4) moves on to Monday night’s final to play defending champion UConn, which beat Alabama in the second semifinal. N.C. State (2615) ended its season two victories shy of a repeat of 1983, when it came through in nine straight mustwin games to capture the most unlikely title.
Some might call this run by top-seeded Purdue unlikely, too. The program is in the Final Four for the first time since 1980, 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.”
Matt Painter’s team has swatted away every challenge thus far. The Boilermakers did it this time despite a 3-point night from their secondleading scorer, Braden Smith, who shot 1 for 9 (but finished with eight rebounds and six assists).
He wasn’t the only one who couldn’t buy a bucket. The N.C. State team that outscored Duke, 55-37, after halftime in the Elite Eight shot 28.6 percent over the last 20 minutes this time — a cold spell that included open looks galore.
“The biggest difference is that some of the shots we normally make we didn’t make in that game,” said N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts. “It kind of 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.
For all Smith’s struggles, he put the final dagger in N.C. State’s season.
It came at the end of a stretch during which Horne shot an airball and Edey swatted N.C. State guard Jayden Taylor’s shot out of the paint, while on the other end, Fletcher Loyer and then Smith made back-to-back 3-pointers.
That was part of an 8-0 run that pushed Purdue’s lead to 20. The only drama left was whether the Wolfpack would surpass their season low in scoring of 52 points. They did not.