No. 1-seed Kansas (30-4/16-2 Big 12) vs. No. 4-seed Purdue (27-7 14-4 Big Ten)
9:39 pm Sprint Center, Kansas City
What’s at stake: A spot in the Elite Eight agains the winner of No. 3-seed Oregon and N0. 7-seed Michigan.
Clashing forces: Kansas ranks fifth in the country 40.6 percent of the time behind the arc. Purdue limits opponents to 32.4 percent from long range.
They said it
Kansas Jayhawks’ Bill Self: “They had my attention back in January. I was telling somebody earlier, sometimes I think as a coach you look at it and say, okay, what teams out there are a little bit different that could potentially be a contrasting style that you could match-up with, and Purdue was the first one that came to mind for me. I’ve watched them throughout the year, certainly not studying them but watched them. But seeing what they did to Iowa State even though Iowa State I believe came back and took a 2-point lead, I think. Purdue controlled that game. But Iowa State got on one of their great runs that they can obviously get on because they can score so well from the perimeter.”
Purdue Boilermakers’ Matt Painter: “We’re not going to do anything differently but we get two guys back. We try to pick up the ball as quick as we can no matter who we play. They’re obviously great at it, but we can’t help them. If you take bad shots and turn the ball over they make great plays. They’re very, very good at that. They’re also very good at having in between breaks, what I mean by that it doesn’t look like there is much there but they got enough there to pull that quick three or break you down quick off the dribble and then get something, maybe not immediately. But they get something that first five to six seconds of having the basketball when it looks like your defense is set. We’re just going to have to do a good job of taking good shots, taking care of the basketball and just trying to get our defense set and corral them. I don’t think if you give ’em space in your one-on-one you’re probably in trouble.
Players to watch:
Kansas – Devonte’ Graham (13.3 ppg, 4.3 apg), Josh Jackson (16.6 ppg, 7.1 rpg), Landen Lucas (8.1 ppg, 8.6 rpg, 64.3 FG%) and Frank Mason III (20.8 ppg, 5.2 apg).
Purdue – Carsen Edwards (10.4 ppg), Vincent Edwards (12.7 ppg, 5.0 rpg), Dakota Mathias (9.9 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 3.7 apg) and Caleb Swanigan (18.5 ppg, 12.6 rpg).
How they got here: Kansas beat UC Davis (100-62) and Michigan State (90-70). Purdue beat (80-70) and Iowa State (80-76).
All-time series: Kansas leads the all-time series 3-2 including a 2-1 mark in NCAA Tournament play. The Jayhawks took a 63-60 decision in 2012 Midwest Regional play. Purdue last beat KU in 1994 Southeast Region play.
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