LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Purdue is in the Elite Eight for the first time in 19 years and is a win away from its first Final Four appearance since 1980.
Its third victory of this 2019 NCAA Tournament -- a 99-94 overtime heart-stopper vs. second-seeded Tennessee -- was arguably the best game this year's Big Dance has given us.
Breaking through to an Elite Eight, let alone the first of one's career, which is what happened Thursday night to Boilermakers coach Matt Painter, rarely comes easily. For almost any coach, it almost certainly can't come more memorably than this. The tension, the crowd, the runs, the gasps, the madness. Purdue blew an 18-point lead and allowed Tennessee to swipe back and light Louisville on fire.
Painter is in his 15th season as a head coach, 14 of which have come at Purdue. He, his staff, his players, nearly 22,000 inside the KFC Yum! Center and millions more across America, glued to their screens, witnessed one of the wildest regional semifinals we've seen in a decade.
It was not without controversy and it was not without typical late-game drama from Tennessee, which escaped its first two theatric games in the tournament (Colgate, Iowa) but couldn't survive a third. Rick Barnes has coached in the NCAA Tournament 23 times, but has made it as far as the Elite Eight only thrice.
He was denied a fourth trip, primarily because of two men: Boilermakers Carsen Edwards and Ryan Cline. They combined for 56 points and shot 12-of-24 from 3-point range. For Edwards, it was a fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament game with at least 25 points. That's the best streak since some guy named Stephen Curry at Davidson more than a decade ago.
"That's pretty dope," Edwards said. "I didn't know that. It's a blessing to be here and have an opportunity to play at this level and play with a bunch of good guys and a good staff that believes in me. I'm just happy to be here, man. I just want to continue to play. When it comes down to it, I don't even really care about the points, man. I just want to win."
It was Edwards who provided the game's most tense, controversial moment. He had a corner 3-point attempt that drew a foul on Tennessee's Lamonte Turner with 1.7 seconds remaining in regulation, a call that will go down in infamy for Vols fans, who will be looking for legitimate contact in the years to come.
Edwards, an 85 percent free-throw shooter, ratcheted up the drama by missing the first free throw in an 82-80 game, Purdue trailing. He sank the next two, giving college basketball fans what they deserved -- overtime -- and completing one of the most entertaining halves of this tournament you could ever ask for.
"Unbelievable, right?" Purdue assistant Greg Gary said in the locker room afterward. "Hell of a game."
Before Edwards made two free throws to get the game to OT at 82-all, Purdue was just 3-of-13 from foul line.
"When I got to the free-throw line, I was struggling all game," Edwards said. "Being able to hit the last two, just a blessing."
If you couldn't feel your heart when Edwards had two do-or-die free throws to extend the game, then you don't have one.
The 3-pointers kept falling.
The free throws kept bricking.
It doesn't make much sense but, hey -- that's March!
Get this: Purdue finished the game shooting 48.4 percent from 3-point range ... and 48.5 percent from the foul line.
"It's an odd box score," Painter said. "Normally, you get people that can make that many 3s [who] are normally going to make their free throws."
Tennessee was a putrid 14-of-28 from the charity stripe, a gross regression from their 76.8-percent rate heading into the game. And yet, Tennessee roared back. Purdue withstood the Vols' rush, which included a 14-0 run that was capped by a Turner 3-pointer that tied the game at 65 with less than seven minutes remaining.
Amid all this, Cline went cosmic: 27 points, 10-of-13 from the field, 7-of-10 from 3-point range, four assists, no turnovers. Cline even said afterward he'd never had a game like this. Pretty good time to play the best game of his life. He was hitting truly absurd shots, the kind of makes that are amplified on March's mega-stage.
We've had a few great individual performances in this tournament. Edwards is coming off a 42-point explosion in Purdue's second-round win over Villanova. Toss in Ja Morant's triple-double vs. Marquette and Cline's night on Thursday and that's probably the top three. Purdue is in the midst of a historic NCAA tourney push.
"He was feeling it, you could see it in his eyes," Gary said of Cline.
Added Purdue assistant Steve Lutz: "When he shoots, you don't think he's going to miss."
The punches and counterpunches of this game landed heavy -- and yet neither team would falter, at least not through 40 minutes. An NCAA Tournament that needed a little more juice and drama was injected with a quite a dosage.
"They had the momentum, they had the game," Painter said.
Volunteers senior Admiral Schofield, who missed all his four shots in the first half, went 7-of-11 the rest of the way and finished with a team-high 21 points. He wound up matching his teammate, Grant Williams, in that regard. It just wasn't quite enough. As the final horn blared, Schofield paced on the court, near Tennessee's bench, then over by the pen of press with their cameras on the baseline. He held back his emotions for about 15 seconds before the onslaught of tears came. Schofield couldn't even get to the handshake line in time with the rest of his team..
Eventually, he looked up to see a gracious Painter reaching out a hand. They shook, then Schofield made his way, shaking all the hands of the team that had ended his college career in one of the more exhausting, heartbreaking ways imaginable. He slowly walked off the floor, towel over his head and aided by one of his coaches, as Tennessee and Purdue fans continued cheeering over the epic they'd just witnessed.
At center court, Edwards and Cline were celebrating. Painter was talking to Allie LaForce on TBS. It was a scene of jubilation and gloominess.
Purdue was in the Elite Eight and Tennessee's season, maybe the best season in school history, was up in smoke.