Toronto’s Zach Edey powers Purdue past NC State, into national championship game

Purdue kept its March Madness dream alive while snuffing out North Carolina State’s, getting 20 points and 12 rebounds from Canadian Zach Edey in a 63-50 victory Saturday in Glendale, Ariz., that placed the Boilermakers a win from their first NCAA title.

N.C. State poked and jabbed at the 7-foot-4 Edey, from Toronto, and gave him fits over his 40 minutes on the floor, but he still dominated the battle of big men against 6-foot-9, 275-pound Wolfpack forward DJ Burns Jr., who laboured to eight points and four assists. DJ Horne led the 11th-seeded Wolfpack with 20 points.

Purdue (34-4) moves on to Monday night’s final to play defending champion UConn after the Huskies win over the Alabama Crimson Tide later on Saturday. N.C. State (26-15) ended its season two victories shy of a repeat of 1983, when it came through in nine straight must-win games to capture one of history’s most unlikely titles.

Some might call this run by top-seeded Purdue unlikely, too. The program is in the Final Four for the first time since 1980, only one season after becoming the second top seed to fall in the first round.

“It’s the one we’ve been talking about all year,” said Edey, who came back for his senior season after last year’s disappointment. “It’s the one we’ve been talking about for four years now, to be able to play in that, accept that challenge.”

Edey and coach Matt Painter’s team have swatted away every challenge so far. They did it this time despite a three-point night from their second-leading scorer, Braden Smith, who shot 1 for 9 (but finished with eight rebounds and six assists).

WATCH | Edey dominating March Madness:

Canadian Zach Edey dominates NCAA March Madness

Canadian Zach Edey is putting up a dominating performance, leading Purdue into the final ‘sweet 16’ in the NCAA men’s March Madness. While he’s now a rising star, Edey attributes a lot of his success to the continued support of his family.

He wasn’t the only one who couldn’t buy a bucket. The N.C. State team that outscored Duke 55-37 after halftime in the Elite Eight shot 28.6 per cent over the last 20 minutes this time — a cold spell that included open looks galore that simply would not fall.

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

For all Smith’s struggles, he put the final dagger in N.C. State’s season.

Smith’s 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, had 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.

Horne did OK on Edey. Wolfpack forward Ben Middlebrooks did even better. In the end, though, Edey was just too hard to deal with. He blocked two shots, altered about five others and his inside presence played into N.C. State’s 36 per cent shooting night.

Edey also had four assists.

“Anytime your best player’s unselfish, everybody just gets in line,” Painter said.

UConn fends off Alabama to get back to title game

UConn kept its bid to repeat as national champion intact by surviving its first true test of the NCAA Tournament, 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 in Glendale on Saturday night.

The top-seeded Huskies (36-3) had 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, with UConn withstanding an early wave of 3-pointers before holding the Crimson Tide (25-12) without a field goal during a five-minute second-half stretch.

Next up for the Huskies will be what should be a much more physical test against Edey and Purdue in Monday’s national championship game. They have their own accomplished big man in 7-2 Donovan Clingan, who finished with 18 points and four blocked shots.

Survive that matchup, and UConn will be the first repeat national champion since Florida in 2006-07.

The Huskies’ Final Four win certainly wasn’t as easy as the final score indicated.

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 Clingan.

Even that wasn’t enough against a UConn team that’s among the most efficient at both ends of the floor.