UConn's bid for repeat title reaches final challenge against Purdue

Glendale, Ariz. — UConn has blown through the NCAA Tournament again to reach college basketball's final night, this time with a chance to claim the first repeat championship in 17 years.

The final test is facing a Purdue team that spent an entire season proving it had recovered from one of the rarest of NCAA Tournament upsets.

The Huskies and Boilermakers are ready for Monday night's championship game, a matchup set when Purdue ended North Carolina State's wild March Madness run, followed by UConn pushing past Alabama in Saturday night's second semifinal.

“It speaks to the credit of what the coaching staff does – they've constructed a beautiful team, as we see,” forward Alex Karaban said.

“They made sure the returners, we weren't complacent, that we wanted to leave a legacy,” Karaban added. "And for the new guys, they're hungrier than ever. … To be one win away against a really good Purdue team, it's going to be a battle and we know that. And it's going to take everything to make sure that we make history."

In addition to that history on the line, there's a pairing of marquee big men in Purdue's 7-foot-4 Zach Edey – the two-time AP national player of the year – and UConn's 7-2 Donovan Clingan.

UConn entered the tournament ranked No. 1 in KenPom's adjusted offensive efficiency by averaging 126.6 points per 100 possessions, while its defense ranked 11th at 94.4 points allowed per 100 possessions. Purdue was ranked fourth offensively (125.0) and 21st defensively (95.9).

The Huskies (36-3) won their fifth championship last season, winning six straight games by at least 13 points each time. And in a been-here-before moment, UConn earned its title-game ticket by beating the Crimson Tide 86-72 for its closest margin thus far in this year's tournament and its 11th straight tournament win dating back to last year.

One more win would put this year's No. 1 overall tournament seed in rare company, becoming the first team to win a repeat NCAA title since Florida did it in 2006 and 2007. It would also make the Huskies only the third to do so since UCLA's run of seven straight championships under John Wooden from 1967-73, the other being Duke in 1991 and 1992 under Mike Krzyzewski.

“It’s a great feeling,” AP All-America guard Tristen Newton said. “Like you said, not many teams can do this. But we feel like we can make history and win the whole thing."

For Purdue, the story isn't one of sustained dominance, but a massive turnaround from a humiliating moment that has the Boilermakers within reach of the program's first title.

Last March, the Boilermakers became only the second No. 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed by falling to Fairleigh Dickinson. That loss dogged the Boilermakers all year, even as they won the Big Ten regular-season race and spent the entire season looking like a title favorite, with redshirt freshman Cameron Heide noting the team heard chants of “FDU! FDU!” from opposing fans during the year.

Only one other team had faced that challenge: Virginia, which lost to UMBC in 2018. That team went on to win the program's first NCAA title a year later as a No. 1 seed.

Now Purdue (34-4) can follow that path to redemption, down to winning a first NCAA title.

“It’s everything we’ve worked for, everything we thought about,” guard Fletcher Loyer said. "A lot of late nights, can’t even sleep because you’re thinking about it.

“It’s been tough. But we fought. We’re going to keep fighting. We’ve got 40 more minutes until we’re national champs. We’re going to push everybody as far as we can, and we’re going to play as hard as we can.”

Purdue's first Final Four since 1980 now includes a trip to the program's first title game since falling to UCLA in 1969.

“Everybody wants to talk about winning it,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “I said, man, you got to get yourself in position before you can win one. It’s like winning a national championship, you can talk all you want, but if you’re not going to play on Monday, you don’t have a chance.

“Obviously we put ourselves in a position to win one. Got to give our guys credit. They’ve been able to battle back. They’ve also been able to handle a lot of adversity.”

Purdue 63, N.C. State 50

Glendale, Ariz. — There was more than one team that came to the Final Four with a dream – more than one team hoping to add its own unforgettable chapter to college basketball's colorful history book.

Zach Edey and Purdue have been thinking big all year, and after snuffing out North Carolina State’s magical season with a 63-50 victory Saturday, it's the Boilermakers who find themselves a win away from the program’s first NCAA title.

“It's the one we've been talking about all year,” said Edey, the 7-foot-4 center who played all 40 minutes and finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds.

For the past three weeks, though, a lot of the country has been caught up in N.C. State. The Wolfpack, 11th-seeded dreamers, were dialing up a classic reboot of 1983, when they won nine straight postseason games to capture an unlikely title that left their frenetic coach, Jim Valvano, running onto the court looking for someone to hug.

In 2024, the Wolfpack went 9 for 9 under similar must-win conditions to get this far.

Only this time, they came two wins short of glory.

“Didn’t get the big one,” said N.C. State guard DJ Horne, who finished with 20 points. “But it’s definitely a big accomplishment in my career.”

N.C. State aside, some might call this run by top-seeded Purdue as inconceivable as anything in college hoops this year.

This is a program well-versed in the art of disappointment and missed expectations. Edey retuned for his senior season and led the Boilermakers to the Final Four for the first time since 1980 – one season after they became the second No. 1 seed to fall in the first round.

The Boilermakers (34-4), top-seeded again, will play Connecticut, an 86-72 winner over Alabama in the second semifinal, for the title on Monday night.

“The reason I came back is for playing games like this,” Edey said. “It's the reason I’m playing college basketball for four years, to finally get this game, big-time.”

N.C. State (26-15) poked and jabbed at Edey and gave him fits through the entire slugfest of a game. He still dominated the battle of big men against 6-9, 275-pound Wolfpack forward DJ Burns Jr., who labored to eight points and four assists.

Burns wasn't the only one having trouble finding the basket. The N.C. State team that outscored Duke 55-37 after halftime in the Elite Eight – the team that had, in fact, outscored seven of nine opponents in the second half since its season became a win-or-go-home affair – shot 28.6% over the last 20 minutes this time.

It didn't help that guard Michael O'Connell pulled up lame with a bad left hamstring halfway through the first half. More than that, though, the Wolfpack had too many great looks at open shots that simply would not fall.

“The biggest difference is that some of the shots we normally make we didn’t make,” Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts said. “It kind of got away from us a little bit.”

It made for some ugly hoops. At one stretch early in the second half, the teams missed 10 straight shots between them.

“Obviously it was one of those grinder games," Purdue coach Matt Painter said.

The shooting troubles cut both ways. Purdue's second-leading scorer this season, Braden Smith, finished 1 for 9 for three points (but also had eight rebounds and six assists). For all his troubles, though, he put the final dagger in N.C. State’s season.

It came near the end of a stretch during which Horne shot an airball and Edey swatted N.C. State guard Jayden Taylor’s shot out of the paint, while on the other end, Fletcher Loyer and then Smith made back-to-back 3s.

It was part of an 8-0 run that pushed Purdue’s lead to 20. The only drama left was whether the Wolfpack would surpass their season low in scoring of 52 points. They did not.

Edey, the back-to-back AP Player of the Year, grabbed his 10th rebound with 8:52 left to secure his 29th double-double of the season. But this was no easy stroll through the paint for the nation’s leading scorer. N.C. State finished with eight steals. Most came from guards sagging down on Edey and swatting it away.

Burns did OK on Edey. Wolfpack forward Ben Middlebrooks did even better.

In the end, Purdue's big man was just too hard to deal with. On defense, he blocked two shots, altered about five others and his inside presence played into N.C. State’s 36% shooting night. On offense, he went 9 for 14 from the field. After the game, he accepted congratulations from none other than Shaquille O'Neal.

“He’s a tall guy,” Burns said. “If you let him get to his spots, he’s going to make his shots. We cleaned it up, but it was a little too late.”

And so, a team that had a four-game losing streak and a looming date with the couch before the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament came close to living out a dream.

Instead, that chance belongs to Purdue.

“It’s everything we’ve worked for, everything we thought about,” Loyer said. “A lot of late nights where you can’t even sleep because you’re thinking about it.”