Coming of age real quick, Purdue beats Duke to win Phil Knight Legacy

PORTLAND — For the second time in as many years, Purdue has seized the November spotlight in the college basketball world, as the upstart Boilermakers rolled over No. 8 Duke on Sunday afternoon to win the Phil Knight Legacy at the Moda Center in Portland. Saturday night, Purdue won just as comfortably over sixth-ranked Gonzaga.

Zach Edey‘s star turn at one of the highest-profile early season events was punctuated by a 21-point, 12-rebound, three-assist demolition of a Blue Devil front-court built around elite talent. Edey won Tournament MVP honors.

Meanwhile, Fletcher Loyer was the best freshman on the floor against a team welcoming one of the greatest recruiting classes ever assembled, scoring 18 points, with a couple late daggers, while Caleb Furst out-Duked Duke with his relentlessness, especially in the second half, en route to 11 points and 10 rebounds.

Purdue’s final lead was its biggest, but similar to Gonzaga, the Boilermakers spent much of the game playing with a robust lead.

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ZACH EDEY DOMINATES

Those big guys up front for Duke, Dereck Lively II and Kyle Filipowski, they were two of the best recruits in America and they’ll be in the NBA very soon. The other one, Ryan Young, comes from the Big Ten.

None of them ever want to see Zach Edey again as long as they live, as the mammoth Purdue center put himself squarely on the All-America radar this week in Portland by winning head to head against Drew Timme and Gonzaga and Duke’s collection of prodigious talent.

“Zach’s a load and people have to deal with him,” Coach Matt Painter said. “He’s really become a weapon for us. He’s really hard to prepare for. You can talk about it and you can scheme but if you go and talk to the individuals who have to guard him, it’s just something you see, that combination of skill and physical strength in college basketball.”

PURDUE PLAYS HARDER THAN DUKE, AND EVERYONE ELSE

As good as Purdue has been at a lot of different things this season, the single most valuable has been the simplest. They’re just trying hard.

“That’s something we’ve really harped on,” Painter said, “that we’re not going to be perfect, but we can play as hard as we possibly can every single possession and we can execute (on offense).”

At times, it’s been Mason Gillis making game-changing plays through raw effort. Sometimes Braden Smith. Today, Zach Edey — all 7-foot-4, 300 pounds of him — dove on the floor at midcourt to corral a loose ball.

It’s been everyone.

But against Duke, the guy was Caleb Furst, who could have been pulled straight out of a Duke uniform in 1992 in this game.

Furst, as he’s been prone to be this season, was all over the place, chasing offensive rebounds, blocking jump shots (again) and just disrupting the game in the best possible way.

When turnover-prone Purdue was middling early, it was Furst who stabilized Purdue off the bench. When Duke was threatening to make a run in the second, it was Furst who put a stop to it, without really doing anything particularly exciting. Just playing with frenetic energy and allowing productivity (11 and 10) to find him.

“Coach always harps on maximizing your time, maximizing your minutes, whether it’s a three-minute stretch, a four-minute stretch, however long it is,” Furst said. “That’s all of our focus. When you get the opportunity, you have to make the most of it.”

It’s showing up on defense, especially, and sure did today.

Duke didn’t score in the game’s final seven minutes.

PURDUE COMES OF AGE REAL QUICK

Purdue’s players were asked after the game whether they surprised themselves this weekend. It’s not just that they won this event with such a new team, but how they won it. The Boilermakers dominated Gonzaga and Duke, two of the bluest-blooded programs in the game.

“No,” Fletcher Loyer said, dismissing the thought summarily.

“We know what we’ve practiced all summer and then into the year,” Loyer said later. “Getting into the season, knowing what we can do, knowing we have one of the best players in the country, maybe the best player in the country, that we can play around him and get a win against anybody.”

That’s what has become apparent about this team, derived largely from those two freshman guards, Loyer and Braden Smith, that confidence, a confidence that almost borders on arrogance, but the right kind of arrogance, the sort of arrogance that has long made Duke great. Freshmen don’t always carry themselves this way.

Loyer does. Smith does. And Purdue does, even if some of those who’ve been around the block a time or two understand there’s normally a process involved before success like this is earned.

“Yes and no,” Ethan Morton said when asked the same question. “You want to have that confidence that you can play with anybody, but also with a really young team at an event like this, you never know what can happen.

“But we’re very happy with our effort.”