SAN JOSE, Calif. — It took 25 years, but Arizona has ended its Final Four drought.
Koa Peat scored 20 points and fellow freshman Ivan Kharchenkov added 18 as the top-seeded Wildcats beat No. 2 Purdue 79-64 in the West Region finals on Saturday night for their first trip to the national semifinals since 2001.
Arizona (36-2) won its 13th straight game by erasing a seven-point halftime deficit and ending a five-game skid in Elite Eight games. It had lost in the regional finals in 2003, 2005, 2011, 2014 and 2015.
Peat, who was named regional Most Outstanding Player, was 9 of 18 from the field, breaking Mike Bibby’s school record for most points in the Elite Eight by an Arizona freshman. Kharchenkov was 7 of 11 from the field and added eight rebounds, while Jaden Bradley and Brayden Burries each scored 14.
“His ability to perform the way he did in these moments, he’s been in a lot of them,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said of Peat, who won four state titles in high school, four goal medals for Team USA in FIBA competition and began his college career with 30 against defending national champion Florida. “I told our guys, don’t make too much out of this. It’s like a state championship game. You guys have all played in them. Or a gold medal game or whatever. Let’s just find a way to win the game. Don’t make it more than it is.”
Purdue (30-9) got 14 points and 10 rebounds from Oscar Cluff and 13 points and seven assists from Braden Smith, who scored 11 in the first half but was just 4 of 15 from the field for the game. The Boilermakers made 7 of 14 3-pointers in the first half but were just 1 of 8 after halftime.
Arizona held Purdue to 32.1% in the second half while making 51.6% of its shots.
“They don’t shoot and really make a lot of threes, but their ability to get by you, their ability, they have such good positional size and quickness,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “They get in transition and they kill you. They get on the glass and kill you. If you would have told me that they would have outrebounded us by one and we would have four more offensive rebounds, I would take that any day of the week against those days. Any day of the week.”
The Boilermakers led 38-31 at halftime, outscoring Arizona 26-12 after being down seven early. The Wildcats scored seven straight to tie at 42, then took a 44-43 lead on two Bradley free throws with 14:34 remaining.
The Boilermakers went more than four and a half minutes without a field goal and Arizona extended to a 51-45 edge on an Anthony Dell’Orso 3-pointer with 12:09 to go. The Wildcats got the margin to 10 with 8:46 remaining, and Peat’s dunk made it 68-55 with 5:35 to go.
Purdue took a 10-9 lead with 15:44 left in the first half on a Smith 3, significant because it was the first time in the tournament that Arizona trailed. The Wildcats responded with a 10-2 run to build a 19-12 lead, and during that run, Trey Kaufman-Renn picked up his second foul.
A 3 by Gicarri Harris gave the Boilermakers back the lead, and later back-to-back 3s by Smith and CJ Cox put them up 33-27 with 2:33 left before halftime.
–Brian J. Pedersen, Field Level Media
