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The Associated Press
DETROIT -- By the time all the scrapping and scratching and diving on the floor was over, it felt like a shame that both those teams, and both those players, weren't moving onto the Final Four.
Just don't expect Purdue to feel bad about it.
Boilermakers big man Zach Edey went for a career-high 40 points Sunday to muscle Purdue within two wins of the title for the first time since 1980 with a 72-66 victory over Dalton Knecht and his never-say-quit Tennessee teammates.
The 7-foot-4 Edey, a unanimous AP All-American, didn't even need a ladder to cut down the net after edging out Knecht, another All-American, who finished with 37 points.
The game's top two players, and their teams, went back and forth all day. How close was it? There were six ties and eight lead changes. With 5 minutes left and the score knotted at 58, both players had scored 31 points on 12 field goals. According to OptaSTATS, this was the first time opposing players scored more than half their squads' points in an NCAA Tournament game.
"You're not trying to take away 100 percent, you're trying to take away maybe 80 percent of what he's trying to get accomplished," Purdue coach Matt Painter said of Knecht. "But we don't take Zach for granted. He could've scored 50 tonight if he'd made his free throws."
Edey missed eight of his 22 attempts from the foul line. One of those misses sparked the play of the game. After Tennessee grabbed the rebound and worked the ball downcourt, Edey swatted away Knecht's layup as he drove to the basket while trailing by five with 33 seconds left.
It was Edey's only block of the day, and it put an end to the Vols' desperate comeback hopes.
"I was just trying to get back, and make my presence felt on the defensive end of the court, and make up for it," Edey said.
Top-seeded Purdue (33-4) set aside last year's grand disappointment -- a first-round loss as a No. 1 seed -- to book the trip to Glendale, Ariz. On Saturday, Edey and the Boilermakers will face big man DJ Burns Jr. and 11th-seeded North Carolina State in the national semifinals.
"We had to take it," Painter said of the abuse that came last year. "Sometimes when you sit in it and you're honest with yourself and you take it, some great things can happen."
Tennessee (27-9), a No. 2 seed, was seeking its first Final Four, and Vols coach Rick Barnes was denied the second trip of his 38-year career to college basketball's promised land.
Knecht finished 14 of 31 from the floor. After making his first four 3-pointers, he went 2 for 8.
"I don't think I put the team on my back," Knecht said. "I think all of us carried each other. I think every single one of us did what we needed to do. At the end of the day, they were just the better team."