Takeaways/Wrap: Purdue punches Final Four ticket

DETROIT — Our post-game analysis following Purdue’s Elite Eight win over Tennessee Sunday at Little Caesars Arena, propelling the Boilermakers into the Final Four.

A BIG MOMENT FOR MATT PAINTER

Matt Painter will never be one to make something like this about himself, but the distorted realities of NCAA Tournament outcomes are funny and one of the great flaws in how college basketball is processed by the masses.

In that sense, a coach who needed no validation just got a bunch of it anyway. Final Fours are sort of non-negotiables for a résumé to be considered a “great” in the court of public opinion, it seems.

Painter has always been a coach’s coach, the coach other coaches pull for. You see in the summers how coaches gravitate to him, and he’s just as likely to hold court with low-major greenhorns as he is a Hall of Famer or Big Ten colleague. He’s long been one of the most liked and respected figures in his field and a tireless contributor to the game behind the scenes, with his USA Basketball work and participation on NCAA committee after NCAA committee. That is thankless, thankless work.

With this Final Four — with maybe more to come in Phoenix — Painter’s stature in the business grows, and thus his ambassadorship in college basketball becomes a bit more prominent.

Beyond that, Painter is young still, but he’s going to be a Hall of Famer. At the age of just 53, Painter’s already within striking distance of 500 wins. He may not coach ’til he’s 75 like many of those who came before him, but consider what that win total could look like in 12-15 years at a program that has it rolling right now.

This was validation not just of Painter — un-needed validation with people who matter, but validation nonetheless — but of Painter’s way.

It’s interesting, and significant in some sense, that Painter’s success levels have peaked as the game around him has changed. While the teams he’s competing with are buying a handful of new 23-year-olds every spring and building through the transfer portal, Painter is constructing teams through continuity and player development, with high school players almost exclusively. As adaptable as Painter has been in his career, he’s held firm on this.

It may mean some competitive disadvantages to come at times when Purdue may have kids playing against men, but his evaluation system and development infrastructure got Purdue here. The direction he’s taken his program offensively has gotten Purdue here.

By doing things the way he always has, Painter has sort of gone against the grain.

It’s worked and there’s no reason to think it won’t keep working.

ZACH EDEY AS AN ALL-TIME GREAT

Forty points.

Forty.

In the biggest game of his career, with the burden of being the great player trying to get his program over a distinct hump, Zach Edey scored 40 points.

The reality coming into this season was clear. Unfair, but clear. As great as Edey could be as a college basketball player, ultimately his place in the sport’s history would be tied to how Purdue fared this season, tied to winning.

Edey is going to be the National Player of the Year again, his statistics will be absurd, he will have enough Big Ten championship rings he might struggle with doorknobs to quote 3YearLetterman on Twitter.

Now, he has a Final Four, delivered by what in college football terminology we’d call a Heisman moment vs. Tennessee. Forty points.

This was a signature moment for a player who has had lots of them, a showcase of his relentlessness as a competitor, his unbelievable effort and the sheer will that drove this team’s unwavering confidence. This was the ultimate lead-by-example season.

It’s futile to compare eras for these GOAT debates that sports-talk radio, social media and hot-take TV have forced on us, but how can you make an argument against Edey as both Purdue’s greatest player ever and one of college basketball’s all-timers?

PURDUE NEVER BLINKED

It was evident back in Honolulu that there was some real (expletive deleted) to this team and that something bigger might be happening than just a really good team beating other really good teams at the Maui Invitational. The gauntlet seemed to be laid down then that this was a mission as much as it was a season, this was both a redemption tour and a revenge tour.

There has been a distinct belief oozing from this team all season, getting almost weird at times, like when Purdue would lose a game and then not even seem to care all that much. Of course they did.

These NCAA Tournament locker rooms are generally emotionally charged. Purdue’s have often looked like a bunch of dudes sitting around at the airport, checking their phones and biding their times until media would be kicked out.

It’s been business. It’s been a standard unique to this team, that it has been competing to be its own best self more than it was worrying about any specific opponent.

Purdue never blinked. Keep in mind, this game Purdue won vs. Tennessee, it fell behind 11 points in the first half. Didn’t matter.

The final five minutes of this game — much like the game at Illinois weeks ago — was the cliched gut check. Sunday, Purdue was toughest against the toughest around. Tennessee is outstanding.