Dream finally ends for Wolfpack
GLENDALE, Ariz. — There was more than one team that came to the Final Four with a dream — more than one team hoping to add its own unforgettable chapter to college basketball’s colorful history book.
Zach Edey and Purdue have been thinking big all year, and after snuffing out North Carolina State’s magical season with a 63-50 victory Saturday, it’s the Boilermakers who find themselves a win away from the program’s first NCAA title.
“It’s the one we’ve been talking about all year,” said Edey, the 7-foot-4 center who played all 40 minutes and finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds.
For the past three weeks, though, a lot of the country has been caught up in N.C. State. The Wolfpack, 11th-seeded dreamers, were dialing up a classic reboot of 1983, when frenetic coach Jim Valvano’s team won nine straight postseason games to capture an unlikely title that left him running onto the court looking for someone to hug.
In 2024, the Wolfpack went 9 for 9 under similar must-win conditions to get this far. Only this time, they came two wins short of glory.
“Didn’t get the big one,” said N.C. State guard DJ Horne, who finished with 20 points. “But it’s definitely a big accomplishment in my career.” N.C. State aside, some might call this run by top-seeded Purdue as inconceivable as anything in college hoops this year.
This is a program well-versed in the art of disappointment and missed expectations. Edey returned for his senior season and led the Boilermakers to the Final Four for the first time since 1980 — one season after they became the second No. 1 seed to fall in the first round.
The Boilermakers (34-4), top-seeded again, will play Connecticut for the title Monday night.
“The reason I came back is for playing games like this,” Edey said. “It’s the reason I’m playing college basketball for four years, to finally get this game, big-time.”
N.C. State (26-15) poked and jabbed at Edey and gave him fits through the entire slugfest of a game. 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.
Burns wasn’t the only one having trouble finding the basket. The N.C. State team that outscored Duke 55-37 after halftime in the Elite Eight — the team that had, in fact, outscored seven of nine opponents in the second half since its season became a win-or-go-home affair — shot 28.6% over the last 20 minutes.
It didn’t help that guard Michael O’Connell pulled up lame with a bad left hamstring halfway through the first half. More than that, though, the Wolfpack had too many great looks at open shots that simply would not fall.
“The biggest difference is that some of the shots we normally make we didn’t make,” Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts said.
UConn 86, Alabama 72: UConn kept its bid to repeat intact by surviving its first true test of the tournament. The Huskies got 21 points from freshman Stephon Castle while clamping down defensively in the second half.
Top-seeded UConn 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 without a field goal during a five-minute second-half stretch.
Alabama (25-12), in its first Final Four, hit a flurry of 3-pointers to go toe to toe with a team that trailed for 28 total seconds during its first four NCAA Tournament games.
Crafty point guard Mark Sears scored 24 points. Grant Nelson had another big game in March Madness, finishing with 19 points, 15 rebounds and one highlight-reel dunk over UConn big man Donovan Clingan.
Clingan started asserting himself in the post offensively, finishing with 18 points and four blocked shots. Castle and Alex Karaban (14 points) hit big shots as the Huskies stretched the lead.
“They’re close to being bulletproof,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said of the Huskies.