Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome shoot Virginia into first Final Four since 1984

The Virginia Cavaliers and Purdue Boilermakers played a classic “no respect for deadline writing” game. In the end, Carsen Edwards finally missed.

If you’re a Virginia fan and thought the Cavaliers Sweet 16 matchup was a heart-stopping game then boy do I have an encore for you. You could not script a better game than the one the Virginia Cavaliers and Purdue Boilermakers played.

Virginia is not known for its offensive output, and why would they? They’re probably the best defensive team in the country, and that’s what they hang their hat on. They must have run some extra shooting drills during shootaround because they needed every single bucket tonight to beat Carsen Edwards and the Boilermakers.

The best way to beat Virginia’s packline defense is to knock down three’s, and Purdue has done that all tournament long. Their hot shooting continued on Saturday night led by Edwards who scored 42 points and shot 10-of-19 from 3.

Purdue had this game all but won, but Ryan Cline missed the back end of a one-and-one that gave the Cavaliers life. If there was one word to describe Kihei Clark that word would be “calm”. He only scored two points all night, and no matter how many times Edwards hit a crazy three he stuck with it and ended up with the assist to Mamadi Diakite to send the game to overtime.

Not a single player on Purdue’s team other than Edwards scored in double figures. Edwards legitimately almost single-handedly won this game for the Boilermakers.

Kyle Guy who at one point in the tournament had missed 16 straight three-pointers. Saturday’s game was more of the same, and when he rolled his ankle towards the end of the first half it was a nightmare scenario. That nightmare quickly faded away when he came out of the locker room lights out finishing the game with 25 points and 10 rebounds.

Virginia didn’t win this game with their defense like we’re accustomed to. They won this game because they executed down the stretch, made clutch buckets oh, and Edwards finally missed a shot. Virginia is headed to the Final Four for the first time since 1984.

Last year they were the first one seed to lose to a 16-seed, and Tony Bennett told his team to own it and that it was a part of their legacy. They’ve owned it and now they’re headed to Minneapolis.