Life is all how you look at it.
For example: Purdue’s men’s basketball team can take the court Monday night in Glendale, Arizona (8 p.m., TBS, TNT and TruTV), and know with 100% certainty that its opponent, UConn, isn’t nearly as good as the last one the Boilermakers faced in a national championship game.
See? It’s called positive thinking, people.
But Purdue’s last title game was 55 years ago. The other guys, one of them named Lew Alcindor, wore uniforms with “UCLA” across the front. The history books mention a John Wooden fellow and seven straight national championships, as well as 10 in 12 years. Guess who didn’t win that night?
Of more pressing concern: UConn (36-3) can taste its second straight title and has been so dominant the last two postseasons, it has won each of 11 NCAA Tournament games by double digits. This year, the Huskies have won five tournament games by a total of 125 points.
“There have been some teams that have hung in there with them, but then [UConn has] separated from them,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “There are some other teams that have gotten flat-out blitzed.”
The Boilermakers (34-4) aren’t that far behind UConn with their own victory margin of 98. Combined, the margin of 223 is the highest for a title game in the history of March Madness. In case anyone was wondering if the best two teams in the country have reached this point, they can stop wondering.
The Huskies were the No. 1 overall seed coming into the tournament and have only cemented their rep since, as reflected in the six-point spread — quite a big number given how great Purdue has been all season. The Boilers twice beat Gonzaga by double digits and twice knocked off SEC champ Tennessee. They beat Marquette, Alabama and Arizona and ran away with the Big Ten at 17-3. They’re on such a special run, they’ve been in the top five of the last 36 AP polls. Despite all that, they’re clear underdogs.
“They understand we haven’t played anybody like UConn,” Painter said. “They’re not fools. We have cable where we’re from.”
The Huskies have been paying attention, too. Believe it or not, there aren’t many 7-4 players in college basketball, and there definitely haven’t been many walking around State Farm Stadium since late last week. What Purdue has that UConn can’t match boils down to two words: “Zach” and “Edey.”
Edey is the first player to lead the nation in scoring and reach the Final Four since Cincinnati’s Oscar Robertson did it in 1960. As Painter put it, “We’ve got the best player in the country — a hell of a place to start, right?”
“You may coach or play your whole career and never coach or play against somebody of his stature,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “Truly a giant player.”
When one scribe filled in his bracket for the Sun-Times on Selection Sunday, he landed on a Purdue-UConn final. Not bad, right? But for reasons that now seem foggy at best, he circled Purdue as the champion. Was he drinking heavily? Or just goofing around? Put it this way: He is quite aware his judgment may have been suspect.
UConn has 7-2 Donovan Clingan, perhaps the only player in the country capable of hanging in there against Edey one-on-one. UConn has long, athletic, NBA-caliber players around the perimeter in Tristen Newton, Stephon Castle and Cam Spencer, seemingly a clear advantage over Purdue’s smaller trio of Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Lance Jones.
What does Purdue have to do in this game? Not much, according to Painter. Just take even better care of the basketball than the Huskies — who had a mere four turnovers in the semis against Alabama — do. And rebound like crazy. And execute flawlessly in transition. And take good shots from start to finish. Aside from all that, the Boilers have to play their best defense yet.
Yep, that’s all. Do all that, and maybe it ends in the school’s first national title and the Big Ten’s first since 2000.
“If you do those things, you’ve got a chance,” Painter said. “Doesn’t guarantee success, but you’ve got a chance. And if you don’t? You don’t have a chance.”
Really, though, it’s just UConn. It’s not like the Huskies are heyday-UCLA good.
See? There goes that positive thinking again.
