End of a lovely line

 For awhile there, the long hallowed run looked extendable. Purdue, and the Braden/Fletcher/TKR triumvirate, led by seven at the break. They still led by seven two-and-a-half minutes into the second half. And then ...

And then, the best team left in March Madness hit the gas. And the Purdues and their three-headed paragon of sticking with it ran out gas.

It was Arizona 44, Purdue 17 the rest of the way, the 1-seed Wildcats simply too much the way they've been too much the entire tournament. In four games so far, they've won by 34, 12, 21 and 15 points. No matter who wins the other two Elite Eight games today, they'll go to the Final Four as the betting favorite.

And so no shame for the Boilermakers, who squeezed as much as they could from what they had until they couldn't squeeze anymore. For the second straight game, they shot poorly -- 38 percent this time out, including 8-of-22 from the 3-point arc -- and that more than anything doomed them when Arizona turned up the heat. In the second half, the Boilers were just 9-of-26 from the field, and clanked seven of their eight 3-point attempts.

But shed no tears for this Purdue team, and especially for Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn, who looked in the postgame presser to have shed more than a few. They won 117 games as Boilermakers, more than anyone in program history. They took Purdue to the only Final Four it's seen in 46 years, and the only national championship game it's ever seen. And they leave with their names all over the school's record books.

Most assists in a career (Smith). Most 3-pointers in a career (Loyer). Most games played in a career (Smith, Loyer, TKR).

The last perhaps being the most notable, in today's rootless landscape of have-mad-skills-will-travel.

"They're great," Painter told TBS yesterday, at the end of this lovely line. "They emptied their tanks. Every single day they worked at it. They really set a standard for our program and that's what you want. You want guys ... who keep taking it to another level."

And do it in one place.