INDIANAPOLIS – With slightly more than 12 minutes left in Purdue’s second round NCAA Tournament game against Utah State, All-America center Zach Edey reached to block a shot from the hand of Aggies big man Great Osobor. Edey nearly got it cleanly, but the whistle blew for a legitimate foul call.
It was the best thing to happen to Purdue all afternoon.
I mean, other than the 57 percent accuracy from the field, the near-perfect foul shooting, the 11 3-pointers, the 49-26 rebounding advantage, the defensive effort by Lance Jones that rendered Aggies star Darius Brown II invisible, the 26-point, 14-rebound performance by Edey and the 106-67 victory that moved the Boilers one step closer to that elusive Final Four.
With the Boilers ahead by 31, even with so much of the second half remaining, Edey did not need to play any more basketball Sunday to assure the Boilermakers would advance to the Sweet 16 for the second time in three years and third time in the past five editions of March Madness.
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That seems an odd sentence to write given the volume of criticism they’ve faced over recent tournament performances. But two things can be true at once: The Boilers have lost three times since 2021 to double-digit seeds, and they have gotten to the second weekend more often that not of late. Not last year, though, and that’s the one that resonated with the public as soon as Purdue’s name was unveiled on the bracket last Sunday as the Midwest Region’s top seed. This was the team that in 2023 became this second ever to lose to a No. 16 seed.
Two things are true at once here, too: This team has basically all the same players as a year ago and is not remotely the same team. That was evident not only in Purdue’s best-ever scoring output for a March Madness game, but also Edey’s reaction when asked about his level of satisfaction relative to reaching the Sweet 16.
“No satisfaction. I didn’t come back to make the Sweet 16,” Edey said. “I came back to make a run, a deep run. Nobody’s satisfied with where we are now. Everybody wants to keep pushing. We’re going to keep taking care of our bodies, keep executing, focus on this gameplan, prepare for Gonzaga.”
Edey was named The Sporting News Player of the Year earlier this month, and he’ll have all the other trophies – Naismith, AP, Oscar Robertson – as soon as they’re ready to announce.
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His dominance of this game was immediate, even when it was frontcourt partner Trey Kaufman-Renn benefiting early from the extravagant attention paid to Edey. Kaufman-Renn scored 18 points and grabbed 8 rebounds; it was his second straight double-figure scoring game, something he hadn’t produced since late December.
“Today he just established himself and got that confidence, and that’s what we need from him," Purdue coach Matt Painter said. "Even when things don’t go his way, he’s just got to stay with it and keep battling. Because when you have someone like Zach who gets that kind of attention … Trey can get some post-ups, and he can get the ball off the glass.”
Edey scored 19 of his points and grabbed all of his rebounds by halftime, which turned out to be necessary if he was going to get his numbers. Because there was no need to expose him to greater fatigue or risk of accidental injury once that third foul came. Withdrawing him at that point was prudent; if Utah State somehow were to conjure a run, he always could be reinserted. In fact, the lead grew when he took a seat.
As opposed to the past two elimination games, when smaller defenders from mid-major programs were granted license by the game officials to be overly physical against Edey, he shot eight free throws and the whistle blew frequently against Aggies defenders.
“He’s hard to defend without fouling,” Utah State coach Danny Sprinkle said.
We could read this performance as some sort of statement of intent by Purdue – if we didn’t have a grasp of NCAA Tournament history, which is littered with overwhelming performances in second-round victories followed by meager exits from the Sweet 16: Syracuse by 18 over Gonzaga in 2010, eliminated by Butler; Washington by 18 over Pacific in 2005, eliminated by Louisville and, oh yeah, Purdue by 27 over Memphis in 1988, eliminated by Kansas State.
This moves them one step closer to the goal, and one step farther away from that dreadful Fairleigh Dickinson game.