Elite

Now it's a history deal, for this Purdue basketball team that wasn't supposed to act like this. What's it been, 19 years? Almost two full decades since Purdue basketball raised this sort of ruckus?

Best game of Da Tournament so far down there in Louisville last night, and when it was over, Purdue somehow was not. The Boilermakers blew an 18-point second-half lead despite shooting 52 percent from the field, and if this looked like a classic case of the Boilers Purdue-ing it up again in March Madness, suddenly, madly, it wasn't.

Ryan Cline kept hitting 3s to keep 2-seed Tennessee from taking over. Carsen Edwards kept being Carsen Edwards. And the Boilers got it to overtime, and then they ended Tennessee's season, 99-94.

And it's on to the Elite Eight. For the first time since, yes, 2000.

When Drew Brees was a college kid who'd just taken Purdue to the Rose Bowl.

When Matt Painter was a 29-year-old assistant coach at Southern Illinois.

When the twin towers still stood, and September 11 was just a date on the calendar, and Donald Trump was just another meathead celebrity tycoon.

Now the meathead is the Meathead in Chief, and Matt Painter is north of 300 wins as a head coach at Purdue. And somehow, with a team that lost four starters and didn't bring in any lights-out freshmen, he's going to the Elite Eight.

He's doing it with a team with one bonafide star (Edwards), one walk-on turned program avatar (Grady Eifert) and a whole bunch of kids who have wholly bought in to what Painter sold them, which is that everyone has a role to play. Play your role, and it all works. Step outside of it, and Purdue is as ordinary as everyone expected it to be.

But it's not, of course.

On the contrary, what the Boilers are is the very embodiment of everything Purdue basketball has come to mean since Gene Keady showed up almost 40 years ago: Tough, hard-edged, un-pretty and remarkably un-killable. Tennessee found that out last night, when the Volunteers likely expected the Boilers to fold like laundry after surrendering the 18-point lead. Instead ...

Instead, Ryan Cline hit another 3. And another. And also another. And pretty soon, Carsen Edwards drew the foul and dropped two of the three free throws to force OT, and then the Purdues wrapped it up.

On to Saturday, as Painter said.

Where 1-seed Virginia awaits, after surviving 12-seed Oregon by four last night. I don't know if Purdue can beat the Cavaliers, because everything's about matchups in Da Tournament, and the matchups will be different this time. But then I didn't think they'd beat Tennessee, so what do I know.

All I know is this: Virginia had better bring its big-boy pants.

'Cause if you're gonna kill these Purdues, you gotta kill 'em. And woe is you if you don't.