The Boilermakers used a dominant second half to take down the Bulldogs.
This Purdue team has been characterized by unselfishness all season long. It’s one of the things I love about them. It’s one of the things that the fans have gravitated too. That’s been embodies by guys like Ethan Morton and Caleb Furst. Guys who played starting roles in the past and now have been relegated to situational minutes. But they’ve done everything the coaching staff has asked them to do and they’ve smiled all the way. Nothing epitomizes that more than what happened at the end of the first half. Purdue had just extended their lead to 40-36 after a great feed from Braden Smith to Zach Edey resulted in a three point play. There was just 9.5 seconds left. Ethan Morton came into the game. I leaned over to Ryan and said, “he’s gonna foul to disrupt their offense.” And that’s just what he did. He came out of the game with 3.5 seconds left. In those six seconds, with fouls to give before the bonus, Ethan Morton committed two fouls to prevent Gonzaga from getting into a decent set at the end of the half. Instead, Gonzaga had to settle for a missed three from Ike. Just like that, the Purdue lead remained at four and Ethan Morton’s stat line at halftime was six seconds of playing time, two fouls, no other recorded stats. He received a standing ovation. And you know what, it was beautiful, it was selfless, it was Boilermaker basketball.
Purdue struggled on defense against this newly reformatted Gonzaga team. If you’ll recall, the first time these two teams met neither shot the ball extremely well. It was sort of an ugly game. This one was much more fun, from a purely non-fan perspective. Much more flow to the offenses. Gonzaga was screening, doing pick and roll, and finding the open man to the tune of 15-29 from the floor in the first half. Gonzaga got mismatch after mismatch in the first half and made Purdue pay with a series of floaters and midrange jumpers that the Boilermakers just couldn’t stop. Lucky for Purdue, the Gonzaga offense wasn’t the only one that was improved for the first meeting. The first half saw Purdue go 7-13 from three and an equally good 15-28 from the floor. Beautiful symmetry in a way.
If you thought the second half was going to be more of the same, you’d be wrong. The Purdue offense was humming like we’ve rarely seen. It started with six straight from Trey-Kaufman-Renn much like the previous game did. Then it was the Braden Smith show. He was a magician in the second half. He was good in the first half too, let’s be clear, but his second half was sublime. He finished the second half with 7 assists and 6 points. He also grabbed a total of 8 rebounds on the day as he dabbled on triple-double watch. He made all the right passes and all the right plays. As good as Zach Edey is for this team, this team isn’t who they are without a guy like Braden Smith doing absolutely everything on the court.
With just over five minutes left in the game Gonzaga went on a bit of a run and but the Purdue lead back down to 12. Then, Matt Painter brought in Lance Jones who got a quick rebound off a missed free throw, then forced a turnover, with the help of who else but Braden Smith, and suddenly Purdue was up 74-59 with 3:45 left and it felt like it was over. And it was. Purdue played out of their minds in the second half. Everyone contributed. Purdue saw balanced scoring with seven players scoring 5 or more. This team is just different than past Purdue teams. There’s something about their mentality. They are hungry, they are angry, they have a killer instinct and they are ready to put teams away in this tournament. Need evidence of that? Just look to Zach Edey salting the game away with multiple possessions pounding the ball inside resulting in easy buckets. He finished the game with 27 points and 14 rebounds.
Purdue is now 5-0 all-time against Gonzaga.
Purdue now will face the winner of Tennessee vs. Creighton in the Elite Eight with a Final Four bid on the line. It doesn’t get much bigger than that.