On Saturday evening, the Arizona basketball program cruised into the Final Four with a comfortable 79-64 win over Purdue in the Elite Eight. It wasn't always easy for the Wildcats on Saturday, as the team found itself trailing by seven points at halftime, but they ended up outscoring the Boilermakers by 22 in the second half en route to the victory.
Arizona has put together a dominant performance in the NCAA Tournament thus far, winning each of their games in relatively easy fashion on their way to the Final Four, and it has come against some teams that were peaking at the right time in their own right.
In fact, Arizona's strength of schedule in the competition thus far has made some tournament history.
“In this NCAA Tournament, @ArizonaMBB has: snapped LIU's 5-game win streak, snapped Utah State's 5-game win streak, snapped Arkansas' 7-game win streak, snapped Purdue's 7-game win streak. No other team has ever reached the Final Four by snapping 4 separate 5+ game win streaks,” reported OptaSTATS on X, formerly Twitter.
Indeed, the Wildcats have found themselves taking on teams that were coming into the matchups with lots of confidence, having been on their own hot streaks as of late, but Arizona was able to extinguish every single one of those squads, and in relatively comfortable fashion at that.
The win over Purdue gave Arizona its first Final Four appearance since 2001, and the team is looking to add a second national championship to its trophy case, having won its only ring back in 1997.
They will now await the winner of the Michigan vs Tennessee Elite Eight game on Sunday afternoon to see who their matchup will be in the Final Four next Saturday in Indianapolis.
