CHICAGO — Zach Edey draped the net around his neck and had no plans to relinquish it until whenever coach Matt Painter asked for it.
He wanted to soak up every last drop of this moment.
Edey scored 30 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, and No. 5 Purdue hung on to beat Penn State 67-65 in the Big Ten Tournament championship game Sunday.
The Boilermakers (29-5) led by as much as 17 in the second half, only to have the lead shrink to one in the closing seconds. They came away with their second title to go with one in 2009. Not long after, Purdue was named a No. 1 seed in the East Region of the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s a great feeling,” said Edey, who was wearing a tournament championship cap and T-shirt to go with the net dangling from his neck. “Obviously we’ve got two nets, we’ve got two hats with the netting on them, we’ve got two trophies. It rewards the work that you’re putting in and validates all of it.”
Purdue won the Big Ten regular-season championship by three games and looked like it was well on its way to an easy victory in the conference tournament final. But Penn State (22-13) made things interesting down the stretch, particularly in the final minute.
Purdue led 66-60 when Myles Dread nailed a 3 with 16 seconds remaining. Evan Mahaffey then stole Brandon Newman’s inbound pass and fed Camren Wynter for a layup that made it a one-point game with six seconds remaining.
Purdue’s Fletcher Loyer then made a free throw before missing the second. Penn State’s Andrew Funk got the rebound, but after a timeout, Wynter got called for traveling just before the final buzzer.
“We’re fighters, man,” Penn State star Jalen Pickett said. “We got down, but we didn’t want it to end. We wanted to raise that trophy at the end, and we just kept fighting. Made our way back. We started pressing a little bit, causing them problems. That’s us gonna be us. We’re going to try and figure something out and we’re not going to give up until the end.”