Every win is beautiful, epecially in the tournament.
I have been staring at the flashing cursor for the last few minutes thinking about what I should write. The entire second half was about as intense of a basketball game as you can ask for, right to the very end. It was a game where Texas threw everything it had into it. Tramon Mark and Jordan Pope were each playing lights out on one leg. Matas Vokietaitas was in foul trouble and limited in what he could do. Purdue’s offense was getting good looks, but no one aside from Fletcher Loyer could knock down a three. Oscar Cluff fouled out on a disastrous play tha tied the game, and the prospect of playing overtime without him was looming.
Thank God for Trey Kaufman-Renn.
Look, all that matters this time of year is having more points than your opponent when the clock hits zero. You don’t get graded on pretty. You don’t get extra poll votes. You don’t get to upgrade your seed. These two teams played dead even for 39 minutes and 59 seconds, with TKR’s rebounding, which has been critical all year, being the difference.
And yes, even then I was worried about the full court heave.
This entire season has been about getting to Indianapolis, and now we are one step away from that goal. It marks the third time that a Final Four has been played in Indanapolis and Purdue has been in the Elite Eight. It won in 1980. It lost in 2000. It now gets another shot as Matt Painter now has his third Elite Eight appearance.
Some thoughts before the video: