Zach Edey and Purdue power their way into NCAA title game, beating N.C. State 63-50

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.

Defending champ UConn returns to NCAA title game, beating Alabama 86-72

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — The final result showed UConn winning its 11th straight NCAA Tournament game by at least 13 points.

The reality: The Huskies were tested unlike any other time during their run toward a possible second straight national title.

UConn kept its composure and its bid to repeat as national champion intact, getting 21 points from freshman Stephon Castle while clamping down defensively in the second half of an 86-72 win over Alabama in the Final Four on Saturday night.

“Our identity is to be pretty relentless,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “We might not break you for 18 minutes, 25 minutes, but at some point if what we’re doing at both ends and on the backboard is at a high level, it just becomes hard for the other team to sustain it.”

The top-seeded Huskies (36-3) put on a March Madness show before arriving in the desert, a stretch that included a 30-0 run in a decimation of Illinois in the Elite Eight.

This was more of a slow burn.

Alabama (25-12) made the most of its first Final Four, hitting a flurry of 3-pointers to go toe to toe with a team that trailed for 28 total seconds during its first four NCAA Tournament games.

Crafty point guard Mark Sears did his best to keep Alabama in it, scoring 24 points. Grant Nelson had another big game in March Madness, finishing with 19 points, 15 rebounds and one highlight-reel dunk over UConn big man Donovan Clingan.

UConn, as it usually does under Hurley, wore the Tide into submission.

Clingan started asserting himself in the post offensively, finishing with 18 points and four blocked shots. Castle and Alex Karaban (14 points) hit big shots as the Huskies stretched the lead.

And one of the nation’s best defenses flexed at just right time, holding the Tide without a field goal for a game-turning five-minute stretch that put UConn on the cusp of becoming the first repeat champion since Florida in 2006-07.

“They’re close to being bulletproof,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said.

Next up for the Huskies is what should be a heavyweight bout in Monday’s national championship game against Purdue. It will not be for the meek, with the 7-foot-2, 280-pound Clingan facing the rare person on Earth who’s bigger than him in 7-foot-4, 300-pound Zach Edey.

“A battle of the giants. I think it’s just great for college basketball. Us and Purdue have clearly been the two best teams in the country the last two years,” Hurley said. “I think it’s just great for college basketball to get the two big dogs playing on Monday.”

The Huskies spent the tournament’s first two weeks terrorizing opponents to the tune of a 27.8-point average margin of victory.