The Sweet Sixteen is stacked
Houston hangs on, Purdue destroys its demons, and early thoughts on the rest of an amazing remaining field
Moments after his team's 106-67 win over No. 8 seed Utah State — the fourth-largest margin of victory ever in a round of 32 game, and the largest since 1999, an epochal blowout with little precedent — Purdue star Zach Edey worked extremely hard, perhaps harder than he had all afternoon, to pretend he wasn't the least bit relieved.
"No pressure," Edey said, straightfaced and almost dismissive, when asked how Purdue had handled their anxiety after years of tournament disaster. "It's just basketball. We did what we were supposed to do and we moved on."
Respectfully, Zach: Come on, man. Come on.
If that’s what Purdue has been telling itself, well, sure. It’s as good a strategy as any. In 2018-19, Virginia, the first team to lose to a No. 1 seed, took a different tack, decided to face the fact of their failure head on — to talk about it and answer questions about it and deal with it out in the open, sometimes to their annoyance, yes, but usually willingly, patiently, with a positive attitude. But that need not be the only approach. You could see a coach like Matt Painter driving home a more pragmatic message: Guys. It’s just basketball. You’re good at it. Chill out, don’t think too hard, have fun, play hard, and the universe will bend toward you eventually.
It’s a nice idea. Ask any Purdue fan in Indianapolis this weekend: Was that how you felt? Was that how Gainbridge Fieldhouse felt?
Of course not. It was a cauldron of raw nerves. The mass anxiety came through loud and clear Friday, when what was a pretty straightforward romp past an overwhelmed No. 16 seed was infused with the thickest pathos any No. 1 seed has felt on the first day of a tournament since Gardner Webb led Virginia at the half in 2019. The Boilermakers led 36-27 at the half, not exactly a UConn-style margin but not the kind of thing that would get most fans of most No. 1 seeds worried. Purdue fans were worried. It wasn’t until the second half, when Edey and Co. truly pulled away, that their fans took a breath, realized they had nothing to worry about, and no longer hugely celebrated every bucket to take (say) a 17-point lead. Their relief was obvious.
Sunday was less nervous, maybe, if only because Purdue was so clinical early, Edey so immediately dominant. He had 21 points and 11 rebounds in the first half, and finished with 23 and 14, because when you win 106-67 you don’t need the (presumptive) two-time Wooden POY to get his 40.
Before the game, in his press availability, Painter gently but firmly corrected a Utah State student reporter who had poorly phrased a question about Purdue’s status as the favorite. “All right, let me explain something to you,” Painter said. “Everybody in the NCAA Tournament is really good. Now when you go to that 32 (teams), everybody is that much better. … This is going to be a dogfight. All right? It's going to be a dogfight.”
It wasn’t, obviously. But Painter was right. Utah State was a really good team all season. The round of 32 is notoriously fraught for No. 1 seeds; No. 8/9 matchups have a tendency to produce challenging opposition. (Northwestern should have been this for UConn, but — like Purdue — UConn is a level above basically every other team in Division I, and so the Huskies could shoot 3-of-22 from 3 and never allow Boo Buie into the game.)
Anyway: Purdue fans would not have foreseen that outcome. They seemed terrified. It wasn’t just enough to beat the 16-seed on the first day of the tournament, although the catharsis there was meaningful. But if Purdue didn’t get to the second weekend of this tournament — playing Utah State, a good but inferior team, with Edey at his peak, with the same team as last year but better — it is hard to imagine the damage to the program’s psyche.
Hell, Painter was talking about Purdue’s recent history of embarrassing failure in the tournament — and notably his role in it, whether it might actually be his fault — back in August. It isn’t his fault; the tournament is weird and random; good coaches loses until they win. It happens over and over. Maybe we’re seeing that with Purdue, or maybe the Boilermakers will fall in the Sweet 16, but either way: They made it out of the first weekend and will play almost a pure chalk second, against teams they know they can beat, have beaten, teams that present no outsized psychological burden. This somehow feels like the biggest accomplishment of the first two rounds.
It was supposed to happen, yes. But it had to actually happen. Edey’s affect aside, it wasn’t business as usual. Anything but. Now Purdue’s tournament can really begin.
The same can be said, frankly, for the rest of the bracket. Other than NC State — a highly talented, underachieving-until-about-10-days-ago high major program, hardly your archetypal Cinderella — this is as chalky as tournament fields ever get. Maybe that bums you out; it’s always nice to have one true long shot in the second weekend of the tournament. But it merely accelerates the process that we all actually secretly want, even if we pretend otherwise: A bit of fun the first couple of days, an Oakland upsetting a Kentucky here and there, but an actual list of the best teams in the country when it comes time to determine a national champion.
That is exactly what 2024 has given us — a truly stacked Sweet 16, 13 of which currently rank in the top 14 on KenPom.com. (Auburn is the only team missing. Tough.)
Below is (at least) one thought on each of the remaining 16 teams, beginning with a team that, much to its own chagrin, gave us perhaps the best game of the tournament late Sunday night.
Houston
Ryan Elvin. That’s who went to the free throw line in overtime, with the game on the line, with Houston needing at least one of his two free throws to effectively seal it — a walk-on who had played just 3.8 percent of available minutes in 2023-24, who had attempted all of four free throws (and 18 field goals) all season. In other words: a walk-on, a guy who never plays unless the game is over and it’s time to let the scrubs run around. Yet Elvin buried the second of his two free throws, and Houston advanced, warding off what would have been a debacle had the Cougars actually lost the game.
They led 81-69 with 2:00 left to play, 82-71 with 1:38. Houston had waged a brutal slugfest with Texas A&M, who are built much like them — highly physical, obsessed with offensive rebounds, constantly turning the FGA/FT math in their favor — and, as a bonus, had discovered how to shoot in the past three weeks.
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