Sleeping No More, Giants Power Purdue To 106-67 Rout of Utah State, Off To Sweet 16

INDIANAPOLIS – Maybe the sleeping giant is finally awake.

After enduring 12 months of skepticism and anguish over that 63-58 loss to Fairleigh Dickinson in 2023, the No. 1 Purdue Boilermakers vanquished one demon on Friday night by dispatching the Grambling State Tigers.

What we saw Sunday inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse was a team intent on proving it belongs on the top seed line with defending champ UConn, blue blood North Carolina and Houston.

What we saw Sunday was a Purdue team that showed no mercy against a 28-win Utah State team that won its conference tournament (Mountain West) and finished its Friday into Saturday morning with a win over TCU.

Pure dominance of the kind Purdue displayed Sunday is what fans of Boiler Ball have been waiting for from coach Matt Painter and Zach Edey.

Edey followed up his 30-point, 21-rebound effort of Friday with 23 points and 14 rebounds to lead the top-seed Purdue Boilermakers to a 106-67 second-round Midwest Region rout of No. 8 seed Utah State Sunday.

Purdue (31-4) advances to play No. 5 seed Gonzaga next Friday in Detroit.

The first two games of this tournament would indicate Purdue is on a mission much like Virginia in 2019 when they lost as a No. 1 seed to No. 16 UMBC in 2018.

Never before in 79 NCAA Tournament games had a Purdue team scored 106 points. They have won their first two games by 39 and 28 points. The 67-point difference is a school tournament record. They won the rebounding battle Sunday, 49-26. They have won the battle of the boards, 97-49.

“Across the board, just pleased with our guys,” coach Matt Painter said. “Anytime you can outrebound somebody by 23 and then your turnovers are even, you’re going to be in a pretty good position, especially if you’re getting to the free-throw line more than them.”

Added Zach Edey, “I think it just kind of proves to the country that I already believed: We’re a really deep team. When I went out, we were good. When Braden went out, we were good. We’ve got a lot of guys that can go and a lot of guys that can sustain a high level of play.”

While Edey’s double-double was just ho-hum by his standards Sunday, Trey Kaufman-Renn sparked a 16-0 run late in the first half and a 20-6 spurt that put the game away in the first five minutes of the second half.

“I really don’t have anything to add to that,” Kaufman-Renn said. “We’re a deep team. We know that whoever we put out on the floor we’re confident they can make plays and help us win.”

“I think more than anything, our defense,” Painter said. “I thought we were really good defensively after we kind of got through the first seven or eight minutes, to Coach sprinkle’s offensive plan that they did something to start the game that they hadn’t done before, or in all the tape that we watched we didn’t see it.”

Lance Jones and Kaufman-Renn sparked a 20-6 uprising to open the second half, turning a 16-point lead to 30. Purdue didn’t let the foot off the gas in the second half, building their lead up to as much as 41.

Kaufman-Renn finished with 18 points and eight rebounds while Fletcher Loyer added 15 as Purdue went 8-of-14 from three point range in the second half to put the game away.

Great Osobor had 14 points and Jose Uduje added 13 for Utah State (28-7), which fell to 7-25 all-time in NCAA Tournament play and fell a round shy of reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1970.

Purdue thrilled the heavily-partisan crowd of 16,770 inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse that turned out to watch them advance to the Sweet 16 for the second time in three years.

Utah State provided some resistance early on, taking leads of 14-10 and 20-17.

But after a Josh Uduje three with 9:21 left in the first half put the Aggies ahead, 23-21, Utah State missed their next 12 shots from the field while Purdue caught fire behind Edey, Jones and Kaufman-Renn.

Purdue went on a run of 18-1 to take a 39-24 lead. Jones ended the first half when he banked in a three at the buzzer to put the Boilermakers up, 49-33.

Jones opened the second half the same way he finished the first with a three just 13 seconds in.

Following a Braden Smith steal of an Ian Martinez pass, Smith found Kaufman-Renn cutting to the basket for a layup.

On the next possession, Kaufman-Renn’s two-handed slam ignited the Purdue fans, putting the top seed up, 56-33, and sparking a desperate timeout from Utah State head coach Danny Sprinkle just 73 seconds into the half.