Well, durn......

Or something like that.

Going into the game none of the "pundits" gave Purdue a chance but they hung in there and had several chances to tie or even take the lead but could never get over the hump. The Boilers needed to do several things well to win the game. They needed to play their normal really tough defense and they did that. They needed to hold their own in the rebounding but they got out rebounded by a fairly large margin (48-33) and they needed to shoot a pretty good percentage of their shots but they missed several open shots (that they normally hit) and had a lot of shots influenced by UConn's big center. They ended up shooting only 36% and they needed to be in the mid forties. They also fouled too many times (UConn out scored them 19-6 from the free throw line) which was a direct correlation with the fact that the UConn players were just bigger and stronger than the Purdue players.

Given all of that the guys showed that they were really competitive. And they have the advantage that their top six players are all underclassmen and will be back next year. And they have some pretty good looking recruits coming in. Things are looking good for Purdue basketball.