No cigar, but ...

 Almost.

Now there's a cheap word for you, on this morning after.

Most unsatisfying word in the English language, if you think about it. "Almost" means you didn't quite make it. It means you were brave in the attempt, but only in the attempt. It's a remainder-bin word, a discount word, a half-price-everything-for-a-buck-buck-buck word.

Or to use it in a sentence: Purdue almost reached the Elite Eight last night.

Almost knocked off 1-seed Houston. Almost became the party crasher in an NCAA tournament gone strictly chalk. Almost surprised even its fan base, which was not really expecting their Boilermakers to make it past last night or even beat the eight-point-or-so spread.

Instead, it took one superb inbounds play to beat them, 62-60.

By one skinny second. 

Because one eyeblink grab at the basketball could not ... quite ... grasp.

Almost.

Heck of a word. And a noble one, in this particular case.

Noble, because Houston was simply a better team, just as everyone knew it was, and with eight minutes to play the Cougars were in their rightful place. They were ten points clear of the Boilers and headed for more. They were knocking down the threes, Windexing the glass, gobbling up second-chance points.

Purdue, meanwhile?

Struggling. 

Missing more than making. Getting outrebounded 16-7 on the offensive end. Doing what a 4-seed is expected to do against a 1-seed.

And then ...

And then, Purdue became what Purdue has always been: A team you're not going to get away from without a few claw marks.

From 7:59 in the second half, when Houston led 56-46, the Cougars scored six points the rest of the way. Six ... points. And the last two didn't happen until 0.9 seconds were left on the clock.

They got it on that aforementioned inbounds play, when Milos Uzan fed Joseph Tuggle in paint and immediately stepped beneath the basket. Tuggle just as immediately fired the ball back to him, and Uzan eased in the layup to give Houston a 62-60 win.

The play was set up with 2.8 seconds remaining, when Cam Heide got his hands on an Uzan miss but couldn't quite close his mitts around the ball. Instead it slipped out of bounds off his fingers, and there went the overtime that should have been.

Almost.

Or, close but no cigar.

Or ... whatever.

Choose your appropriate metaphor, but remember it doesn't just describe being brave in the attempt. Remember those last eight minutes, when Purdue outscored Houston 14-6, held the Cougars without a field goal until Uzan's game-winning layup, harassed them into 0-for-11 shooting across 7:58 of the final 7:59.

That was Purdue being Purdue, in every best sense of that phrase. It was Purdue going out on its feet because ... well, because it's just what the Boilers tend to do.

And that cheap remainder-bin word, "almost"?

Not quite so cheap, this time around.