Men’s Final Four set following No. 1 Purdue and No. 11 NC State victories
By Jacob Lev, CNN
(CNN) — The men’s Final Four is now set following victories by No. 1 Purdue and No. 11 North Carolina State on Sunday.
The Wolfpack’s unlikely run continued following a 76-64 upset win over No. 4 Duke in the Elite Eight.
The Blue Devils took a lead into halftime, but NC State came alive in the second half, led by forward DJ Burns, who finished with 29 points and four rebounds.
The Wolfpack have now won nine straight games and advance to the program’s first Final Four since 1983 – the same year they won their second, and last, national championship.
Burns gave the team credit for their “switch in commitment” in what helped propel them to this run.
“Nobody is being late to things,” Burns told the CBS broadcast. “Nobody is being a problem on the court. Everybody is coming together. I don’t know what it is, but everybody is handling on and off the court well.”
The Wolfpack women’s basketball team earlier clinched their spot in the women’s Final Four. NC State becomes the first NCAA division I program to send both the men’s and women’s basketball teams to the Final Four since South Carolina in 2017.
The men’s Wolfpack team becomes the sixth No. 11 seed to make it to the Final Four and the first since UCLA in 2021.
Earlier on Sunday, the Boilermakers defeated No. 2 Tennessee 72-66 to advance to the program’s first Final Four since 1980.
Purdue were led by star big man Zach Edey, who finished with 40 points and 16 rebounds.
Afterwards, Edey was asked about what it meant to help lead this program to the Final Four, responding that it was a total team effort.
“We’ve got a lot of guys that were doing the right things, a lot of guys that came with the right mindset, and we knew it was going to be a war,” Edey told reporters.
“We weren’t surprised by anything they do, any hard checks they throw. We knew it was going to happen.”
The Final Four is set to begin on April 6 with the Boilermakers and Wolfpack facing off.
No. 1 UConn and No. 4 Alabama will play in the other Final Four game from State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The men’s national championship game is scheduled for April 8.
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