OMAHA, Neb. — A blessing in disguise is a blessing nonetheless. So as he sat in front of his locker stall Sunday night, shoulders slumped, Elijah Johnson had two words for the Purdue Boilermakers:
Thank you.
"It was something that I appreciate, honestly," said the Kansas guard, who netted 18 points — including a go-ahead 3-pointer and go-ahead layup in the final three minutes — in the second-seeded Jayhawks' 63-60 win over No. 10 Purdue in the third round of the NCAA tournament. "I appreciate Purdue for giving us that game.
"They could have laid down, you know, and made it easy for us, like a couple teams we played this year. But they didn't. They fought us back. And that's what we needed."
If you were a Kansas fan, this one seemed earmarked to break your heart. The Jayhawks' all-universe big man, Thomas Robinson, missed more bunnies than Elmer Fudd. Their all-world shot-blocker was a no-show. Their rock, point guard Tyshawn Taylor, never seemed to get untracked. A smaller, less talented roster was pushing them around, never backing down.
"They have NO fear," a patron in the front row of CenturyLink Center Omaha said of the Big Ten's Boilermakers midway through the first half. The Kansas fans sitting next to him responded with stoic silence.
Purdue's Robbie Hummel was a taller version of Ali Farokhmanesh, only on a recurring loop. He drained seven of his first eight shots, five of his first six from beyond the arc. At one point, the Boilermaker star dropped in what looked to be a 28-footer, with Taylor's hand in his face.
"All you can do is shake your head and take the ball out," Robinson said of the Boilers' senior, who finished the first half with 22 points. "You can't do anything else."
This one was earmarked for disaster. Under coach Bill Self, KU was 2-4 in NCAA tournament games decided by five points or fewer before Sunday. From mid-March onward, Luck was a lady that belonged to somebody else. Jayhawk lifers know the ones that got away by rote. They still wear the scars, buried under layer after layer of Big 12 championship souvenir t-shirts.
For 36 minutes — more, really — Purdue was the better team, the hungrier team. The Jayhawks led for a total of 45 seconds the entire night. But 23 of those were the final 23, the ones that count the most.
"We played their style of play (Sunday)," said Robinson, who notched a double-double (11 points, 13 rebounds) but missed 10 of 12 attempts from the floor. "And we proved we were able to do it."
Eventually. In the early going, the Boilers threw everything at the 6-foot-10 junior but the kitchen sink. The frustration mounted, and then spilled over. At one point, midway through the first half, Robinson reportedly went to the bench and shouted at his teammates that he felt as if the entire Purdue team was covering him and that they needed to shoot the ball. The language was more colorful than that, apparently, but that was the gist.
"You heard that?" Robinson replied when asked about it later. "I told them, 'Look, you have to let everything go. Don't worry about the rebounds; I'll take care of that part. If I can't score, I still (have) the rebounding part of my game that I could get out there. I just told my guards to just go out there and play, don't worry about the rebounding, and I'll get it."
It also helped that Self took Robinson off the 6-8 Hummel — a lights-out shooter in a power forward's body — and switched to a zone defense in the second half. At times, Kansas countered with a triangle-and-two, with one man assigned to Hummel and another to a second Boiler on the wing.
"Our big men really aren't used to guarding a perimeter guy like that," Jayhawks guard Conner Teahan noted. "So I think it helped us out a lot. Elijah did a great job. Travis (Releford) was on him for a little bit, too, and he did a great job. That was definitely a key, I felt like."
The Boilermakers take pride in not beating themselves; Purdue had committed nine turnovers or fewer in nine of its last 14 games coming into Sunday night. But eventually, the Jayhawks eventually got that façade to crack. With less than a minute to go, the Boilers had the ball, up one. Purdue's normally sure-handed point man, Lewis Jackson, began dribbling around aimlessly, running into Johnson at the top of the key.
The Indiana native reached in and poked the ball away, then took it coast-to-coast for a layup that put the Jayhawks on top again, 61-60, with those final 23 seconds left.
"It was a ball-screen for me to drive right," Jackson explained. "I got in the paint, I didn't feel comfortable with the shot, they clamped down right there, got a hand on the ball and they got a good steal."
Survive and advance. In March, style points are irrelevant. Ugly is beautiful, if it means you get to dance on.
"(Coach Self) said, 'Every national championship team has a (bad) game,' " Robinson recalled. “We got that out of the way tonight. Hopefully, there's no more."
Hopefully. Sunday proved to be another test passed, another bridge crossed. And now it's onto St. Louis, another short drive for the faithful, and a Midwest region that keeps piling on the intrigue. With North Carolina stalwarts John Henson and Kendall Marshall dinged up — Marshall broke a bone in his right wrist in the Tar Heels' win over Creighton on Sunday — this might be a chance to pounce, a chance to put old pal Roy Williams in a sleeper hold again on the sport's biggest stage.
Of course, that would also be looking ahead — up next is NC State in the Sweet 16. When it comes to Bracketville, Kansas fans already know better. And for that, they have Purdue to thank.
