Purdue's magic season comes to a close as it should have | Edey's legacy

Not often do the X's and O's of a game tell a story so completely.

Dan Hurley didn't get here on accident. He was complimentary of Zach Edey all weekend. He said the two time player of the year was both the best player in college basketball, but a no doubt about it star to be in the NBA.

But Hurley had a choice to make. He could either try to contend with Edey the way with most of college basketball did by sending a full team at him every time he touched the ball, or he could try and use the benefit of having his own gigantic monster, Donovan Clingan, and hope that Clingan could contend enough with Edey down low.

But more than that, Hurley counted on his team of rugged defenders to shut the water off everywhere else on Purdue's offense.

It was a gamble, and one that UConn won convincingly.

Zach Edey had 37 points and 10 rebounds on a night Purdue scored just 60 points. He took 25 shots.

It's a gamble that paid off, one Dan Hurley would do again.

But the thing is, so would Matt Painter.

Purdue did a lot of things wrong on Monday. It didn't play its best game. It didn't get three point shots. It didn't get rebounds.

But putting the game in Zach Edey's hands again and again?

This Purdue was gonna go down swinging with its best punch. This Purdue team was going to let Zach Edey take them as far as he could. He almost took them all the way. He did take them, through the Big Ten, through the first round, through the Elite eight, and the Final Four.

Purdue's season ends in the National Title game with the program's best player having another all-time performance.

Purdue lost a basketball game tonight, but if the last thing you think about with this team, with Zach Edey, then you're not doing this right.

Edey defined his own legacy, in his own way, and this season belonged in his hands.

After all, things don't really end. People move on, and things, but mostly we just begin anew.

After all, if you've been paying attention to this program and this coach, it was never about results. It was about trusting the process. This Purdue went out doing just that.

Here's some words from Zach Edey himself, about his legacy, and words from his point guard and coach, and videos from his teammates final answers about the season.

Zach, you clearly have had a huge impact on this program. When you reflect on where you've come in your journey, what do you hope your legacy is with the Purdue Boilermakers?

ZACH EDEY: I don't know. That's kind of for Purdue to decide. I'm not going to tell my own legacy.

I think for me, the big thing is you can say whatever you want about me. You can say -- however I played, you can say whatever. But you can never say that I didn't give it my 100% every single time I stepped on the floor, every single time I went and practiced. That's what I'll always hang my hat on.

I came in, and I never didn't give it 100%.

Braden, what is it about Zach in the two years you've spent with him that you've enjoyed the most and will miss the most when he leaves?

BRADEN SMITH: Yeah, man, I enjoy just playing with him. He taught me so much. I went from 6'4" center, to a 7'4" center. Definitely a huge change.

Two-time national Player of the Year. The most unselfish person you'll ever meet. Like Coach Paint said, he gets more hate for no reason. For what? He's out there dominating everybody?

Just stuff like that. He's just going out there and enjoying the game he loves. He hasn't played it for long. To have somebody like that that just wants to go out there and play, because that's what he loves, and people want to give him crap for it. Just saying that makes me kind of admire him a little bit more. I realize like, Hey, you're the top of the game and you're still getting hate on because you love the game.

When he's gone, just who he is as a person. He's a great dude. Great dude.

Q. You talked about the burden he had to go through, all the crap for four years. There was another kind of burden. Could you expand on that, all of that he had to go through.

MATT PAINTER: Yeah, it's also a backhanded compliment, right? People like myself who averaged four points, no one cares about you. The fans don't, like, pay attention to you. I call it cartoon bad guy. Ever watch the cartoons, there's the bad guy that gets all the hate and everybody is coming at him? The best player in college basketball, the best player in your conference becomes cartoon bad guy.

That's the way it is. But it's also a backhanded compliment. There's millions of basketball players out there that would love to carry that burden. Not everybody can do it. Very few get that. He's done it. He shows up.

I'd always say, When is he going to have a bad game? When is he just not going to show up? He always showed up. He always competed. He always played through physicality. He's a very unselfish player. I think that's the piece of it.

But it's hard, man. It's hard to go through that, especially in today's world. What eats up a young player is positive comments, because then they get full of themselves. Then the negative comments, like you feel sorry for him. This guy doesn't deserve this or whatever. It's kind of how you look at things, how you handle things. He always stayed really professional. Even when they're hanging on him and fouling him, doing stuff throughout the year.

They didn't do that at first 'cause who he is today, that's not who he was three years ago. I always would talk about, like, he'd play 17 minutes, he'd get 12 points, six rebounds, four fouls, six turnovers, we'd go to the monitor twice. Then all of a sudden six games later, like, he's not elbowing people in the head anymore. He couldn't pass at one time. Then all of a sudden he could pass. Well, he never got doubled so why should he have to pass?

It's amazing the way he's grown and the way he's developed, but also how he's went about it, the way he's stayed professional.

Q. Can you talk about the three-point percentage. You didn't get off that many shots. What were they doing to take that away?

MATT PAINTER: Yeah, they were just going to let us play one on one in the post. You see the 25 attempts that Zach had.

For us, we're just going to throw him the basketball and keep going, just be able to keep going to the well.

You hope through the game in, like, what you do, that we could loosen that and get him. When you play in the NCAA tournament, you win six games, they led for I think everything except six minutes, four minutes and 20 seconds, just kind of think about that. You got to get them on their heels.

For us to get them to change, we had to get the lead, get 'em on their heels, and then get in that 10-minute mark. We couldn't get there. We couldn't get rebounds. You can't go on runs if you can't get stops.

They're a great defensive team. So they just made a decision, like, we can defend the perimeter and we can take this away from you, then you're just going to get the ball to your best player, he's going to be one on one, then that's that.

They were going to live with that.

If we could have rebounded the basketball better, we could have got them to change and do that, but we weren't able to do that. Then they stayed in control of the game.

Not everybody can do what they just did. You have to give credit to their defense and their coach and how they're wired.

Q. Talk about the on-the-ball pressure and how daunting it was for you guys to get into your sets.

MATT PAINTER: We were one-dimensional because of how good Zach Edey is. We were comfortable going to him, right? We were comfortable continuing to do that. That's what they're giving you.

When a great defensive team says, Here is how we're going to play it, you want to fight, that take tough, bad threes, bad throws are going to be run-outs for them. We kept showing those clips. You hear people say they get thirsty. Three-point shooters, they don't get looks, now start taking ones they shouldn't take.

For them, they're just going to go score at the other end. That's what we were talking about. Take what they give you. If they take something away, whether it's Zach's post-up, Braden's ball screen, our threes, we still can get a quality shot.

We had to be better on the glass, in my opinion. Then we had to be a little more efficient in the shots we were getting that. Balance right there could have gotten us into the game. It would have gotten us into the game and made it a game, but we simply weren't able to do that.