Big men loom even larger in national title game; Purdue-UConn have history in Glendale; more

GLENDALE, Ariz. — To end the college basketball season 2024, a big man matchup straight out of 1994.

As teams, Purdue and Connecticut are much more than their respective centers, Zach Edey and Donovan Clingan, but as these two teams have seemed to be on a collision course for some time now, the two giants meeting up before season’s end seems like a perfect main event.

The 7-foot-2, 280-pound Clingan said the only time he’s seen Edey (7-4, 300) was in passing in a hotel last November at the PK85 tournament in Portland. UConn was playing in a separate event, the Phil Knight Invitational. He saw Edey in passing in one of those hotels, but has never seen anything like Edey on the floor. Clingan drew a comparison to Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner, though he and Edey are very different body types and very different players. UConn played against Hunter Dickinson this season as well.

“When he plays the elite centers,” teammate Alex Karaban said, “it brings out a new energy in him. He’s talked about that.”

The Big East and UConn’s high-level non-conference scheduling has exposed Clingan to lots of great bigs, but Edey’s a product of a Big Ten that’s put him up against some real whales, too. Kofi Cockburn, Dickinson, Myles Johnson, Ke’lel Ware to name a few.

“That’s like the Big Ten’s thing,” Edey said. “Big post-up centers.”

Neither team just anchors their pivot man at the basket. Both will be active as screeners and divers, the part of Edey’s game that has changed this Purdue team so much.

Clingan is very aware that Purdue’s offense isn’t a stationary one.

“He’s a force in the ball-screen game the same way he is in getting his position, when he rolls and seals early,” Clingan said. “He’s so dominant in the post and can finish over both shoulders. I just have to be real careful. I just have to be real careful with the foul trouble and wall up the best I can. I have to realize he’s going to make a few shots and I have to be all right with that. I just can’t give him the and-ones and those extra points.”

It might be the head-to-head matchup of the season in the final game of said season, a microcosm of the bigger picture that has two of the elite teams in college basketball playing for the trophy.

Purdue never wanted any different. The Boilermakers played one of the best non-league schedules in the country, won what had to be the greatest MTE ever put together at the Maui Invitational and has beaten blueblood after blueblood the past several years.

“This is the matchup we wanted,” Edey said. “We didn’t want it any other way. Our whole run up until NC State, we played against chalk. This was the game we were all looking forward to.”

LAST TIME PURDUE MET UCONN

It was right here, at State Farm Stadium, in the 2009 Sweet 16. Purdue had just beaten Northern Iowa and Washington in Portland and traveled straight to Glendale to meet the top-seeded Huskies, then led by Hasheem Thabeet, A.J. Price, Jeff Adrien and a variety of other eventual pros. UConn won that game 72-60 en route to reaching the Final Four.

“I remember walking out for the media practice and Thabeet was walking out and I remember us thinking, ‘Oh my god, he’s so big,’” Robbie Hummel remembered. “That’s probably how people feel about Zach now.”

A fun memory for Purdue from that game: Bobby Riddell draining a garbage-time three over then-freshman Kbut eventual national champ and NBA star Kemba Walker with 20 seconds left.

“He didn’t read the scouting report,” Riddell joked.

DAN HURLEY ON MATT PAINTER

Connecticut coach Dan Hurley might be college basketball’s most bombastic personality, a stark contrast to Matt Painter’s more professorial public face.

Nevertheless, Hurey sees common ground.

“I think we do have a lot of similarities in terms of the culture and the old-school values that we have in terms of the type of people that we recruit, the type of teams we have,” Hurley said. “So maybe the personalities are a little bit different on the sideline. I wish I had his composure at times.

“I just think we’ve been involved in the games our whole lives. We were both players. We both played for incredible coaches throughout our careers. I think those coaches we played for have made us stubborn and strong in what we believe.

“I think we’re both very confident people that are authentic and aren’t trying to put on a show. I don’t think there’s anything fake about either one of us. We are who we are.”

ON BACKCOURT PRESSURE

UConn has massive guards, an advantage it will hope to use to disrupt Purdue’s offense. That has been the ambition of a lot of teams this season, but very rarely successful, though the Huskies are better than anyone Purdue’s played this season.

“I think we have a disadvantage if they make poor decisions,” Painter said. “I don’t think it’s a disadvantage if we make good decisions. They swarm you, they get into you, they make it difficult on you. Don’t put yourself in difficult scenarios. Take care of the basketball, run our stuff, make good decisions.”

It’s nothing for Purdue, but turnovers and shot selection are its utmost priorities.

“They’re probably the best I’ve seen in a long, long time in being able to take your mistake and make you pay for it at times when you make mistakes,” Painter said.

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