NCAA Tournament: Here’s How UConn Huskies Destroyed Purdue Boilermakers

The Boilermakers, on the other hand, had a big game from Edey when the big man posted 37 points, 10 rebounds, and two blocks. Apart from Braden Smith’s 12 points, no other player in Purdue’s lineup scored more than five points against the Huskies.

The inability of other Purdue players to get buckets proved to be a factor in Connecticut’s win. Meanwhile, the team has completed a dominant run this season with a pair of rings in two consecutive years under the guidance of Dan Hurley.

How The UConn Huskies Defeated Purdue Boilermakers in the NCAA Tournament Championship

After the game, Boilermakers head coach Matt Painter spoke to the public and pointed out what the Dan Hurley-coached team did right. In a series of tweets by Brian Rauf on X:

“Matt Painter, Zach Edey & Braden Smith are at the podium.

Painter: “I want to congratulate UConn on the win. I thought they had some separation there in the 1st half, at the end…I thought the real difference ended up being their ability to offensive rebound in the 2nd half,” Rauf tweeted.

Painter on the loss: “It hurts because this opportunities are slim. You say you’re going to get back here and you want to use this as motivation. It’s a lot different than last year when you put yourself in a great position and don’t take advantage of it. This year we put ourselves in a great position and did take advantage. We just came up short against a great team,” he added.

Painter: “When a great defensive team says ‘here’s how we want to play it,’ you play it. If you start forcing and taking bad threes, that leads to runouts for them,” Rauf shared.

For his part, Hurley reiterated the Huskies’ plan to shut down everyone except Edey out to get the win:

Hurley on the gameplan: “We didn’t want to give up 3’s. We didn’t care if Edey took 25, 28 shots to get 35 points. The gameplan was no Smith, no Loyer, no Gillis, no Jones. Keep that collective to under 20 points as a group and they had no chance to win no matter what Edey did,” Rauf said.

As seen in the scoreboard, Edey did have a monster performance against Connecticut. The problem lay in how the they focused on Purdue’s other guys, effectively limiting their offense in the process.

With this win, Hurley has now received tons of praise for steering the Huskies to another championship. While it seemed hard at first, this win has now solidified the Connecticut coach as one of the best ever in college basketball.