Boring, Methodical, Historic - For The First Time Since 1969, Purdue Is Playing For A National Championship

I don't know what else to really say. The game was boring. It was ugly, not really much going on and you know what? Purdue wouldn't have had it any other way. Sure, you want Braden Smith to look the part of a decent guard, but other than that? What went wrong for them? Edey had a 'slow' night and still did this: 

I'll say this too - it was clean. There were no real moments, outside of maybe Burns' 2nd foul, where everyone on Twitter started losing their mind about the Edey whistle. So, credit there. But again this game sucked. Part of it was the football stadium. Part of it was O'Connell getting hurt and NC State playing basically 6 guys. Part of it was just the way Purdue wanted to play. It was determined to get the ball to Zach Edey in the paint no matter what and it took him nearly 3/4 of the game to get a feel for the double and kick it to an open shooter. 

I really wanna go this whole blog without the joke everywhere. See losing to a 16 seed the year before is how you go on a run! But, if that was the sole reason that Lance Jones ended up at Purdue, it's worth talking about. Jones was the key today. 4-for-9 from three and was the one guard who was consistent the entire game. He needs to be the 3rd option that can go score when he has to, he was that tonight. 

This isn't even a knock on Purdue either. Basically every team who plays on a Monday in April needs a game like this during the Tournament. Few teams are the outliers, like UConn last year, but you need to win the rock fight. You gotta win a game where it's gross, people keep saying it doesn't feel like a Final Four, etc. They deserve credit for that because all that matters is winning.