A traitorous pick

 I grew up in a Purdue family. Let's get that out there straight off.

My uncles and cousins on both sides of the family are or were passionate Boilermaker fans. My one uncle's son is a Purdue grad. I have a niece who's a Purdue fan, which she gets from her mom, my sister, which makes sense because our mother was a Purdue grad.

Which is how I wound up in our driveway growing up, pretending I was Rick Mount. "Pretending" being the operative word.

Anyway ... I just wanted you all to know that.

Because I'm not picking Purdue tonight. I'm picking UConn.

"He always was a traitor," everyone in my family just said.

Yeah, well. I yam what I yam.

Which is a former sportswriter afflicted with a sportswriter's eye, meaning I lost most of my ability to take sides a long time ago. I make decisions based on what my eye tells me -- and what my eye tells me is Purdue is up against a team tonight for which even the Boilermakers won't have  the answers.

Way I see it, Zach Edey gets his points for Purdue, but so will Donovan Clingan and any number of other Huskies for UConn. As Purdue coach Matt Painter so astutely put it yesterday, Purdue hasn't faced anyone like UConn this season. The Huskies are big and athletic and come at you from any number of angles, and they do it with a relentlessness every bit the equal of Purdue's.

They are pitiless, these Huskies. As Painter also observed, they make you pay for every mistake, and they do so immediately. Purdue will have to play its best game of the season to beat them -- and the last two times out, the Boilers haven't come close to doing that.

They couldn't hit the broad side of a Walmart from the three-point arc against Tennessee. And they played an atrocious floor game against North Carolina State, turning it over 16 times with point guard Braden Smith committing five of those throwaways.

Do that tonight, and this is over by halftime.

The good news: I don't think it will happen tonight. I think this will be a battle to the end.

This is the game, after all, for which Purdue has been preparing an entire year, since tiny Fairleigh Dickinson knocked the Boilers out in the first round of the 2023 Madness and made of them a laughingstock. Their largely unimpeded march through this year's tournament has in great measure been fueled by that laughter. They're sick of hearing it, and they've taken it out on everyone standing in their way.

All this is my way of saying there are ways Purdue could win tonight. If UConn has a weakness, it's from Threeville, where they've shot a tick under 37 percent this season. Purdue, on the other hand, is one of the best three-point shooting teams in the nation. The Boilers bounced back from their uncharacteristic bricklaying against Tennessee to splash 10 threes against North Carolina State, which is a big part of why they led by as many as 20 points in the second half and  wound up winning by 13.

Oh, yes: And with the exception of Tennessee in the regional final, no one Purdue has faced in the tournament has shot better than 33.3 percent against it. Grambling, Utah State, Gonzaga and North Carolina State were a combined 23-of-77 (29.8 percent). Which means Purdue has defended the three pretty zealously.

And then there's one other thing, of which my friends and family never cease to remind me: I am frequently wrong about stuff. Specifically, lately, stuff about Purdue.

I thought Utah State was an accident waiting to happen in the second round, and the Boilers eviscerated the Aggies by 39.

I worried Gonzaga might get 'em in the Sweet Sixteen, but, no, Purdue dispatched the Bulldogs by a dozen.

I thought Tennessee was dangerous, and the Volunteers were for awhile, but the Boilers gutted out a six-point win.

And, of course, I thought North Carolina State was a Cinderella to be reckoned with because it had the muscle inside to deal with Edey. But he went for 20 and 12 and Purdue was never really challenged.

So when I look at tonight and think, again, that Purdue's in deep doo-doo ... 

Well. Think of that as a reverse curse, or something. And be glad I'm picking UConn.

"Ah, you're still a traitor," the fam just said.

Darn. And I thought that would work.