How former Purdue basketball players celebrated Final Four berth
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Purdue basketball’s Barrett, Martin, Waddell on being Final Four bound
The fathers of Carson Barrett, Chase Martin and Brian Waddell played for Gene Keady’s best teams, but never got to the Final Four.
Elation. Relief. Pure joy. For former Purdue players, the emotions of Sunday’s Final Four-clinching victory over Tennessee elicited many emotions, in some cases all at once.
From a condo in Cabo San Lucas to a rushed trip to the airport in Detroit to a break from cleaning the garage at home, here are the stories of how former Purdue players from different eras experienced the Boilermakers reaching the Final Four for the first time in 44 years.
Drake Morris (Class of ’81)
Drake Morris, the Mr. Basketball runner-up out of East Chicago Washington in 1977, watched Sunday’s game in Hammond. Morris is one of the few living Boilermakers who understands how it feels to play in a Final Four.
Morris played on the 1980 team, seeded sixth, that took out second-seeded Indiana in the Sweet 16 and fourth-seeded Duke in the Elite Eight in the Mideast Regional in Lexington, Ky., to reach the Final Four, which was played at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.
“It brought back a lot of memories,” Morris said of watching Purdue’s 72-66 win over Tennessee. “I got chills up and down my spine. I’m very happy for the whole team, the whole group of coaches. Matt Painter got a lot of flak over the years but once they got past that first round, then the second round, it was no surprise to me they were in this position. I picked them to be in the championship against UConn.”
Morris, who was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame last year, said he had a “good feeling Purdue would handle (Tennessee)” after defeating the Volunteers early in the season.
“The Knecht kid was a handful,” Morris said of Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht, who scored 37 points. “He had the hot hand and made some tough shots. There were a few times I wished Purdue would slow it down a little bit and get the ball to (Zach) Edey. Then he got himself in position and they fed it to him. He’s gotten so much better with his low post work.”
Morris said he did not want to compare his team to this current Purdue team. “It’s whole new, different era,” he said. Morris and teammate Keith Edmondson both scored a team-high 20 points in Purdue’s regional semifinal win over IU and Morris went 8-for-9 from the free-throw line in the Eight Eight win over Duke (Joe Barry Carroll went for 26 points).
“To me, that was the Final Four right there,” Morris said. “That was a tough region to be in. I was glad we came out and beat Indiana and Duke beat Kentucky. We beat Duke to get there, which was a really great experience. And this is going to be a great experience for those guys. It’s a tough hill to climb to get there.”
Morris’ Purdue team was not able to get past the next step, losing 67-62 to an eighth-seeded UCLA team coached by Larry Brown. The Bruins had…
Read More: How former Purdue basketball players celebrated Final Four berth 2024-04-04 08:21:18