The Purdue redemption tour continued last night in Glendale, AZ, as the Boilermakers, competing in their first Final Four since 1980, defeated North Carolina State 63-50. They advance to the championship game for the first time since 1969, facing UCONN tomorrow night, as the Huskies attempt to go back-to-back.
Win or lose, this iteration of Purdue basketball will be lacing it up for the final time. Here’s hoping they go out with a bang,
Only four teams remain standing following a tournament filled with minor upsets. My bracket is busted and my Final Four predictions, save one, are completely toast. But, how about that one. Purdue finds itself in the Final Four for just the third time ever and the first time since 1980, so the hope remains alive for this weekend. Purdue faces 11-seed NC State tonight, and wouldn’t losing to a double-digit seed be a way to go out after these last three years, with defending champion UCONN and Alabama in the other game. The winners face off on Monday for the national championship.
For the first time since 1980, the Purdue Boilermakers are headed to the Final Four. This afternoon’s victory over Tennessee in the Elite Eight showdown at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit gives Purdue its first regional championship in the men’s NCAA tournament in 44 years. The team will battle NC State Saturday in Phoenix for their shot to advance to the championship game.
What a weekend in Detroit! Seeing a Sweet Sixteen victory against Gonzaga on Friday followed by today’s win against Tennessee, both teams that we had already defeated this year during non-conference play, was exhilarating and. to be honest, a little nerve racking. Here’s looking forward to an exciting weekend as the school looks for its first basketball championship since the women’s team won it all in 1999.
The Sweet Sixteen kicks off today following an opening weekend with upsets galore that played havoc with my bracket, although my entire Final Four is still intact, which is better than some.
Things look pretty decent here. Auburn’s loss to Yale knocked me for a bit of a loop, but, aside from that, things are fairly clean, with three of the four teams heading into this weekend still alive.
Things are slightly worse on this side of the bracket, with just two of the four teams I picked playing this weekend. While Nebraska did me dirty, I correctly picked that Wisconsin had peaked after beating Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament two weeks ago.
The nation’s attention turns to the college hoops scene for the next few weeks as the NCAA tournament kicks off later today. I’m not in any pools this year, so most of these selections have no ultimate bearing on my life, aside from personal pride. I do have the potential to purchase tickets for future rounds should a certain school from West Lafayette manage to get out of their own way and not embarrass themselves this weekend. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at this year’s selections.
My selections here are mostly chalk, with a couple early upsets but with the top four seeds heading to the Sweet Sixteen. Iowa State is my pick to advance to the Final Four.
Fun fact: the first men’s college basketball game I ever attended was Purdue versus Houston at Market Square Arena back in 1993. Both teams are once again top seeds in this tournament. I’m hoping Nebraska continues to pull off upsets against teams they have no business beating. In the end, though, I have Marquette going on to Phoenix.
By nearly every metric, these last four season of Purdue men’s basketball have been the most successful in program history. They’ve won back-to-back conference championships. They’ve won 59 Big Ten games, setting a school record and tying the conference record.
The one metric where they have fallen short is in the NCAA tournament. Heading into this year’s tournament, they have put together two first round exits, against 13-seed North Texas in 2021 and 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson last year, becoming just the second 1-seed to fall in the opening round. In 2022, they advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, where they were felled by 15-seed St. Peter’s.
Purdue enters the tournament this week as the #1 seed in the Midwest region and look to have an achievable path to the Final Four. But they are coming off of a rough Big Ten tournament, where they scored a season-low 67 points in their victory over Michigan State before losing to Wisconsin in the semi-finals. While Zach Edey was able to get his, scoring 29 and 28 points respectively, Lance Jones was the only other Boilermaker to reach double digits in either game, scoring 10 against Michigan State. The so-called supporting cast answered the bell all year, but if they disappear once again in the tournament, Purdue will once again be on the outside looking in and will have squandered their best chance in decades at making the Final Four, let alone winning a national championship.
While Purdue begins their defense of the Big Ten Tournament title this afternoon, they’ve already started to collect some post-season hardware. On Wednesday, the Sporting News announced that Zach Edey was their National Player of the Year for the second straight season, making him just the eighth repeat winner since the award began in 1943. Edey swept the six National Player of the Year awards last year and is the favorite to do so again this year, a feat last accomplished by Bill Walton in 1972 and 1973.
One week ago, Purdue defeated Michigan State to earn at least a share of their 26th Big Ten Conference championship, the most in conference history. A road victory against Illinois on Tuesday gave them the title outright, the first time a Big Ten team has gone back-to-back in over a decade and the first time Purdue has won back-to-back titles since winning three in a row from 1994-1996.
Their 26 titles are the most amongst all Big Ten schools, followed by the squad in Bloomington, who own 22 championships. The Boilermakers have won four of the last eight conference titles, dating back to 2017. Matt Painter has five conference titles under his belt, one less than Gene Keady and tied for seventh in conference history. With the season wrapping up tomorrow at home against Wisconsin, the team has little to prove next week in the conference tournament while preparing to avenge last year’s first round loss in the NCAA tournament.
Less than two and a half minutes into last night’s game against Michigan, Caitlin Clark broke the NCAA women’s scoring record, notching her 3,528th point with a deep three from the left side, surpassing Kelsey Plum. Clark had scored Iowa’s first eight points, getting the record out of the way early after failing to score in the fourth quarter of their last game, a loss to Nebraska. That wasn’t the end of her night, though, as she finished with a career-high, and Iowa record, 49 points along with thirteen assists, five rebounds, and a steal.
Finishing the game with 3,569 points, less than 100 points away from Lynette Woodard’s all time women’s record of 3,649, set in 1981 before women’s sports were administered by the NCAA. Pistol Pete Maravich’s overall record of 3,667, lies just beyond that. Both of those should fall by the end of this season.
The Big Ten has announced multiple iterations of their scheduling plans for football to accommodate the additional four schools joining the conference next year, but there was no word of how basketball would adjust. Until now. On Tuesday, the conference announced details on how they will handle changes, both for the regular season and the Big Ten Tournament, for both men’s and women’s basketball.
For conference play, both the men’s and women’s schedules will remain where they are today, with 20 and 18 games respectively. This will allow each school to maintain scheduling flexibility for their non-conference games and is consistent with the approach taken by other large conferences. Teams that are only scheduled once per season will rotate locations annually, while those scheduled twice per season will be determined with consideration for competitive balance, geography and rivalries.
The Big Ten Tournament will expand to 15 teams from the current 14, leaving the bottom three teams in the conference sitting at home. The top four seeds will continue to have a double bye, while seeds 5-9 will receive a single bye. This format maintains the existing five-day schedule of the tournament and gives exposure to all teams that may still be in contention for postseason tournament invitations.