Detroit played host to an NCAA Tournament battle for the ages on Sunday afternoon.
On almost any other day against any other team, Dalton Knecht’s 37 points would go down in March Madness history.
But it was National Player of the Year Zach Edey who stole the show Sunday at Little Caesars Arena. Edey went for a career-high 40 points as Purdue reached the Final Four for the first time in 44 years, making Knecht’s performance a footnote in the Boilermaker’s 72-66 win over Tennessee.
After missing two free throws — including an airball on the second — to keep the game within two possessions with 35 seconds to go, Edey redeemed himself with a block of Knecht that all but iced the game.
Knecht hit six 3-pointers on 12 attempts, but no other Volunteer reached double figures.
Fletcher Loyer, who played his first two years of high school basketball at Clarkston before transferring out of state, had 14 points.
Purdue is the first Big Ten team to reach the Final Four since Michigan State in 2019, and the first school outside of MSU, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio State to do so since Indiana in 2002.
The win keeps the Boilermakers’ dreams of “pulling a Virginia” alive. Last year, that was a bad thing when Purdue became just the second 1-seed to ever lose to a 16-seed in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
But the Cavaliers turned around and won a national championship the following season, and Purdue is just two games away from repeating the feat. The Boilermakers will face 4-seed Duke or 11-seed NC State Saturday in Phoenix. No. 1 overall seed UConn will taken on 4-seed Alabama in the other semifinal.