Boilermakers Send Home Wildcats Early
Purdue 72, Arizona 63
Friday, March 16, 2007; 11:33 PM
NEW ORLEANS -- Lute Olson, Bob Knight and Mike Krzyzewski are already in the Basketball Hall of Fame. What else do they have in common? They're all out of the NCAA tournament.
Olson's Arizona Wildcats ended an underachieving season with a 72-63 loss to Purdue on Friday night, joining Krzyzewski and Knight as first-round losers.
  Arizona coach Lute Olson directs his team against Purdue during the first round of the NCAA Midwest Regional basketball tournament in New Orleans, Friday, March 16, 2007. (AP Photo/Bill Haber) (Bill Haber - AP)   The Gators are too much to handle in an 84-75 victory over Ohio State for their second straight national championship. On Hoops: Florida is a team for the ages, because in winning back-to-back national titles they took a very good team's best shot and still came out victorious. The Buckeyes are setback by the Gators' three-point shooting every time they try to make a run. Greg Oden, the public introvert, and Joakim Noah, the unabashed extrovert, share a common desire to savor college. Select CompanyFlorida joined a small group who repeated as men's basketball champion:Oklahoma State 1945-46 Kentucky 1948-49 San Francisco 1955-56 Cincinnati 1961-62 UCLA 1964-65, 1967-73 Duke 1991-92 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPFINAL FOURREGIONAL FINALSSouth West Midwest EastMULTIMEDIA Photos: Snapshots from the 2007 NCAA tournament. Video: Charting Texas freshman Kevin Durant's rapid rise to the top. Video: Post columnist Sally Jenkins talks about Durant. ON OUR SITETeam-by-Team Analysis:Coaching Tree: The Six Degrees of March's Mayhem (PDF) Flashback: A Quarter-Century Worth of Memories (PDF) TOURNEY TRACKER Share and compare your NCAA brackets. |
This becomes the first tournament since 1995 to start the second round without any of these NCAA coaching greats.
"I think all three of us will hope that never happens again," Olson said. "We'll be back."
The Boilermakers (22-11) are certainly back, turned around quickly by second-year coach Matt Painter.
They won only seven games last season and nine the year before, but earned a ninth seed in the Midwest Regional with a solid season and a strong finish. Now they're headed to the second round for the first time since 2003.
"We've had some tough times," Painter said. "To be able to get a first-round win against a national program like Arizona, it's huge.
"A lot of factors go into how significant this win is. It helps our guys feel good about themselves and it helps us in recruiting. It's just a huge program win."
Carl Landry led the way, as usual, with 21 points and 13 rebounds. He always seemed to be in the right place against a bigger Arizona front line. He made 6-of-10 shots, including a 3-pointer when the defense left him open behind the arc, and was 8-of-8 from the foul line.
"In the second half, he was a man out there," Painter said. "He got those key rebounds. There's no doubt that he was the best player tonight."
He had a lot of help, too.
Chris Kramer added 16 points, including a basket from his knees. Chris Lutz hit his first four 3-pointers and scored 16 and David Teague _ who, like Landry, missed most of last season because of knee surgery _ added 15.
