Purdue's Season Ends - Midnight Metaphors Amongst March Madness

There's a story that goes something like an abused sister gets magically transformed, goes to a ball, gets some fancy slippers, and tries an Irish Goodbye (It is St. Patty's Day). She falls in love with a Prince somewhere in between all this.

And for some reason, this story has become metaphor for lower seeds winning and that metaphor has shortened to Cinderella teams.

If there's only one slipper for the real Cinderella, the amount of teams that have fit in the metaphorical shoe since has been too many to name. But for this story, about this season, there are only two that matter.

The first is the University of Maryland-Baltimore County or how they became known, UMBC, when it upset then #1 seed Virginia 74-54.

The other is Fairleigh Dickinson or as they're now referred - maybe there's something about the power of acronyms - FDU who just pulled off the second ever #16 seed over #1 seed.

Granted, Purdue's loss wasn't like the first one. A dominated loss, but there's something almost crueler about the score, 63-58. Purdue didn't have to rush out of the dance to escape before getting turned back into a pumpkin or whatever happened to the Cinderella.

Instead, they were forced to hang around in a slog of a game where Purdue's size was never enough to overcome FDU's speed and aggressiveness, their doubles and traps, and mostly, Purdue had to stand there as everyone watched and saw Purdue for what they truly were the whole time.

A team that couldn't make open jump shots.

There's a metaphor to wrap up, Cinderella falling down the stairs crashing into the pumpkin, spilling down the side of the road into the wreckage of last year's carriage accident, but it's late, and history happening can sometimes provide clarity, but sometimes it can come at you like it does for Ethan Morton who said after the game in front of his locker:

"I'm kind of just numb."

But here's some quick threads from the historic night in Columbus.

Four schools and five seasons, but David Jenkins Jr. couldn't get a shot to fall against FDU and what seemed laughably inevitable at the start of the season now ends in just a personal tragedy. Jenkins Jr. who sacrificed all season, coming off the bench behind two freshman, wasn't able to check off one final milestone off his list of to-do's.

I don't think it's a secret that David Jenkins Jr. is one of my favorite Boilers and this story on his career is the best thing I wrote all year, so he's the first person I went to when we were given access to the locker room after the 15 minute cooling period.

Jenkins Jr. was sat in a chair next to the white board with a sizable hole in it that I can only surmise was a final angry blow from a Purdue player on the wrong side of history for the second straight year.

I sat down next to him not imagining I'd have to ask him these questions this quickly but knew inevitably this ride would be over for him. After all these seasons, his college career was finally at its last stop. One final last goal short, personally, and as a team.

I asked him, if it was even possible, to find peace in an ending like this.

"I mean, it sucks," Jenkins says quietly. "And again, even for myself, like, I didn't reach my 2000 points the way I wanted to and really honestly falling 11 points short from that, it seems like the worst feeling in the world. But you know like the marathon continues and you know I'm gonna keep running my own laps and I'm gonna keep going no matter what. And hopefully God has something in store for me the next opportunity."

I ask him then what are his next steps, and the impossibility of an open future, the first one for a long time that won't end with him choosing a new school, seemed to hit him.

"I don't know," he says with a little breath, almost a laugh even, but not really, not tonight. This chapter ended poorly, but his story isn't done. He's sure of that. "I'm for sure gonna find a really good agent and I'm gonna play. I'm gonna keep playing basketball."

And while Jenkins Jr. will go forward, this team, this moment, this season, it ends and so does his college playing career. His last assessment of his last game is a grim one, one that will have to help spark the next Purdue team.

"I just don't think we came out the way we should have, man. Like I'll say it again. I know it's like a broken record, but March Madness is literally called madness for a reason," Jenkins Jr. said and so his time at the dance is over.

Purdue will be better for it.

Zach Edey has not made a decision about his future. This loss, this season, the future, it will be placed on scales and discussed and NBA scouts will watch him and make their assessments and agents will be consulted and a whole circus will live around the 7-4 big man who might either be an outlier or a relic in the NBA as a 7-4 post presence.

Edey had a lot to process and not much time. He's carried the weight of this team through all their success, the scars of every team's attentions, and now, the heaviest burden again. March disappointment.

If this is his last game as a Boiler, it's not because he didn't love being there.

"I've made no decisions," Edey said about deciding his future. "I have to do what I think is best for me because I have no idea how long my career's gonna last. I have no idea what's going to happen in my future. But it's tough - if there was no money involved, I would come back to Purdue in a heartbeat. It'd be a no brainer. This is my favorite locker room I've ever been in. Ever."

And just because it can't be an Edey story without mentioning this, "Of any sport I've played in. Baseball. Hockey. Basketball. Any team."

But money is involved.

"Even when we're not doing anything basketball related... these are my guys," Edey said about his teammates and their special bond.

"It really sucks that it ended this way," Edey said, and then he says the real truth of this season. One that was uncomfortably showing the last month, and cruelly announced itself fully to the party while the whole world tuned in. "But this is a team that exceeded expectations really all year."

And they did. From Portland through the Big Ten, this Purdue team was something it wasn't. Undefeated, the #1 team in the nation, they were covered in jewels and glass slippers and next to the other Big Ten teams, at times, it looked like a Purdue team capable of doing special things. Of being one of the four #1 seeds in the nation. The resume said it, but not the tape, not the team that came into the NCAA Tournament.

The concerns, the whispers, the doubts, they turned out to be real. Purdue was a Cinderella story, but the Cinderella story, out of metaphor, was really a story about someone pretending to be something she wasn't.

That's a tough pill to swallow for a Coach who has proved to only have one crack. When midnight strikes, when March Madness comes, his teams wilt away, and Purdue becomes the pumpkin.

But it's late and this loss isn't coming with much clarity. Midnight is striking and the numb is setting in. There's a lot of March left, but for this Purdue team, the final bell has struck.