Purdue meets the end of the line in Kansas City
PDF: Purdue-Kansas stats
Analysis ($): Stat Blast | Wrap Video | Takeaways | Blog
Video: Purdue reacts to loss to Kansas
KANSAS CITY — Unlike the past few seasons, there didn't seem to be many tears in Purdue's locker room following the Boilermakers' season-ending loss to Kansas in Thursday night's Midwest Regional semifinal.
At least there weren't while the media was around.
What there was was angst and what seemed like shock, shock at the way it all went down, how the Big Ten champions' 27-win season ended with such, well, violence.
Top-seeded Kansas, playing in front of an unabashed home crowd that actually sang "Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk" from all corners of the Sprint Center in the game's closing minutes, won 98-66, delivering upon the Boilermakers a loss of historic margin while also flexing its own muscles during a regional set up as more of a coronation for the home team.
Afterward, Purdue coach Matt Painter was asked if KU can be stopped.
"If they play like they play in the second half," Painter said, "they can't."
The final margin, while absurd for a second-weekend game between two quality power-conference teams, each of them with great players, can be viewed as a bit warped.
Purdue led most of the first half, by as many as eight, and even after things had gone completely sideways for the Boilermakers to end the half — resulting in a seven-point halftime deficit — they kept afloat into the final 10 minutes.
Point is, this wasn't a start-to-finish smashing so much as it was a slow bleed leading into an eventual gush.
With under 15 minutes left to play, Ryan Cline made a corner three that brought Purdue to within four points, at 58-54.
Kansas outscored Purdue 40-12 from that moment on, as all the issues Purdue worried about coming into this then came to bear.
The Boilermakers turned the ball over far more than they could afford to, 16 times leading to 20 Kansas points.
Such opportunities emboldened the Jayhawks' star guards.
National Player-of-the-Year candidate Frank Mason got loose in the final 10 minutes — not like he'd been muted before — on his way to a way 26-point, seven-assist, seven-rebound game. Backcourt mate Devonte' Graham was right there with him, totaling a season-high 26.
"We let players like that get their heads up," forward Vincent Edwards said, "and then the crowd gets into it and they feed off that and then they're just having fun with it."
Continue reading below
The offensive glass hurt Purdue, as Kansas' superior athleticism showed up. KU's 12 offensive boards produced 16 of their points and denied the Boilermakers needed stops time and again. Freshman phenom Josh Jackson scored 15 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, four of them on offense.
"When you're playing a team like that and you're the quote-unquote underdog," point guard P.J. Thompson said, "there's certain things you have to do to win the game and we just didn't do it tonight."
But it was also just one of those runs, one of those runs Purdue knew Kansas was capable of, but maybe not quite to this devastating extent.
Kansas seemed to make every shot it took as the lead grew exponentially, Purdue struggling to find ways to just not make it worse.
Mason rained threes and got to the basket far more readily than he did earlier in the game. Graham made closely contested jumpers left and right. Kansas as a whole got rolling in transition. Jackson made step-back threes, dunked on a lob pass and drove for an and-one.
"When athletes like that are getting out in transition, dunking and hanging on the rims," Dakota Mathias said, "you're not going to beat 'em."
Meanwhile, Purdue's best offense over the final 10-and-a-half minutes was its own misses. In that span, three of the four field goals Purdue made were tip-ins of their own misses, sort of a back-handed compliment.
It made a rock-solid start to the game seem like forever ago. Purdue shot 56 percent in the first half, 31 in the second half, while Kansas shot 67 percent after halftime.
Caleb Swanigan, in what might have been his last game at Purdue, finished with 18 points, seven rebounds and four assists, but six of Purdue's turnovers.
"The way we lost, it happens in basketball sometimes," he said. "You see a lot of blowouts at every level. One team might get really hot. That's why the NBA uses that seven-game format. Everybody knows that in basketball, everything can go for you, and everything can go against you."
Swanigan assisted on many of the high-low buckets that got Isaac Haas his 11 points and got Purdue off on solid footing in the first half. Thompson added 12 points.
This was the worst NCAA Tournament loss in Purdue history, by a mile, trumping a 77-55 loss to Temple in the 1999 Sweet 16.
It was a frustrating night for a team that had done so much this season, but still wanted more.
"We did a lot," big man Isaac Haas said. "It's pretty special to have gone from the bottom of the Big Ten before I got here to winning it in three years. It's special.
"Obviously we wanted to go further, but …"
