On Monday, big men roam the earth again

The Purdue-Connecticut NCAA final will feature Zach Edey battling Donovan Clingan, way up there.

If the tickets weren’t already sold, we could put Monday night’s NCAA men’s basketball championship game where it belongs. Jurassic Park.

Zach “Z-Rex” Edey vs. the Clingosaurus. Two large human beings who, for the life of them, can’t figure out the meaning of that curved line, 22 feet and 1 ¾ inches from the hoop. To them, the game could be played in a breakfast nook, and the “restricted area” should be restricted to those who look down on the world.

Purdue’s Zach Edey and Connecticut’s Donovan Clingan occupy the vortex of this moment. They are the suns around which their teammates revolve. In a tournament that was supposed to turn everyone’s bracket into rubble, they are Fred and Barney, stars of the prehistoric show.

Edey, a senior who came back because (A) he wanted to boost Purdue and (B) the NBA wasn’t particularly interested, is 7-foot-4 with a wingspan of 7-10 and has been the best player in college for two years now. Clingan, a sophomore, is 7-foot-2 with a 7-7 wingspan. Both know how to block shots and play defense without fouling. Both are accustomed to traffic gathering below them, and have developed ambidextrous post moves in response. Neither has played against someone exactly like the other, which is why this final game in Glendale, Az. is so compelling for a sport that has been straining to hold its relevance. That’s also why UConn coach Dan Hurley, going for a second consecutive title, had enough perspective Saturday night to call it “a great thing for college basketball.”

UConn lost three games this year. One was to Seton Hall, when Clingan got hurt and played only 14 minutes. Another was to Kansas, when Clingan scored eight points, and the Huskies lost by four at the toughest homecourt in the game. Another was to Creighton, when Clingan scored 12. In this tournament Clingan has made 35 of 53 shots, with 18 blocks. Players routinely drive the lane against UConn and then stop suddenly, as if they sense an upcoming cliff. Clingan does not miss opportunities to block shots and, in those situations, hardly ever fouls. He protects the rim as if it were family.

Purdue lost four games this year, and Edey played well in two of those. At Nebraska he scored 15 points, seven below his average. In 23 of his games, Edey visited the free-throw line 10 or more times. In the tournament, he is averaging 28 points.

North Carolina State had a sound plan for Edey in the semifinal on Saturday. It rarely left Purdue’s perimeter shooters, but when Edey began dribbling, at least one Wolfpack defender would come back to attack that dribble. Ben Middlebrooks effectively guarded Edey’s hands at times. State also picked up point guard Braden Smith at the midcourt line, and Smith twice got whistled for over-and-back violations in the first half. State tried, as best it could, to move Edey’s camping spot back to the middle of the lane. So Edey had five turnovers, one short of his season high. He also scored 20 with 12 rebounds, and the Boilermakers won, 63-50, with their C game.

Alabama had a plan for Clingan, too, with about as much ultimate success. It retracted its defense and dared freshman Stephon Castle, the only UConn player to score in double-figures in each tournament game, to hunt for points. Castle scored 21 but everyone else joined in, too, which is how UConn’s locomotion offense works. Clingan had 18 points on 8-for-14 shooting and four blocked shots, and the Huskies pulled away from a 56-56 tie and won, 86-72.

Connecticut now has a chance to win back-to-back championships. Duke did that in 1991-92 and Florida in 2006-07, but no one else has since the tournament was opened up to conference runnersup in 1975. Beyond that, UConn can become the first team ever to win all its tournament games by at least 10 points over a 2-year span. There are other reasons why the Huskies are nearing a unique pedestal, to be addressed one game from now, if things work out. One example: Alabama was 14th in Division I in tempo, and fourth in the 68-team NCAA field. It had zero fast-break points against Connecticut.

Clingan has less responsibility than Edey, who has played 78.8 percent of the time this season. He has an explosive backup center in Samson Johnson and, for that matter, a far deeper and bigger cast around him. It’s impossible to watch any Huskies game without noticing the high-impact shots of Cam Spencer, the transfer from Rutgers. It is possible to watch a Huskies game without fully realizing the impact of Alex Karaban, but when you rewind the tape and look closely, he’s the Stage Manager, scurrying to find the loose balls, the rebounds, the 3-point shots when he finds the room, the ways he can help defensively.

But you often measure Klingan by the things that don’t happen. Nick Pringle (6-foot-10) and Jarin Stevenson (6-11) combined for 35 points in Alabama’s regional final win over Clemson. Against UConn and Clingan, they combined for no field goals and two points.

Tristen Newton was UConn’s splashiest player during the season, but he is shooting 42.3 percent in the NCAAs and was 4 for 11 against Alabama. Last Saturday, Connecticut laid a 30-0 run on Illinois, and Newton went 0-for-6 for the day. The prospect of Newton playing like himself on Monday is only one worry for Purdue coach Matt Painter. Smith, Painter’s own All Big Ten point guard, was 1-for-9 with five turnovers, yet played all 40 minutes, which Smith used as reassurance of Painter’s belief system. If not for Lance Jones and his four 3-pointers, who knows?

Clingan is likely to be a lottery pick if he chooses the NBA this summer. Edey is unlikely. Both will have to stretch out their games to find true pro success. There’s rarely been a time when the college and pro games seem so divergent, almost like two different sports, and NCAA basketball is no longer the main talent supplier. A guy like Alperin Sengun, the Houston Rockets’ many-splendored “big” from Turkey, is what they’re looking for.

But that’s fine. Ed O’Bannon, Jimmer Fredette, Tyler Hansbrough, Derrick Williams, and Christian Laettner are only a few of the college headliners who couldn’t bring their entire games to the NBA. It doesn’t mean they played in vain, or that they’re forgotten by their schools.

Besides, Edey and Clingan aren’t really dinosaurs. Most of the best NBA players are big ones: Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis. Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren aren’t far behind. They roam all over the court, and Jokic is the first legitimate point center, but “positionless basketball” has not consumed the game, not yet. The biggest problem that today’s bigs face is the necessity of guarding all 47 feet of the frontcourt. Once they have to defend in space, especially in pick and rolls, they’re limited. But Rudy Gobert of the Timberwolves is still a major defensive barricade, and Clingan, at least, has the feet and the wingspan to emulate him in a few years.

Besides, the center shortage just makes it tougher to deal with Edey and Clingan on the other end, when they get rooted in the paint. If Clingan does get into foul trouble in the opening minutes, none of Hurley’s sideline histrionics will help wrap up Edey.

It’s the first championship game featuring two No. 1 seeds since North Carolina slipped past Gonzaga seven years ago, and it’s the first championship game with an identifiable, me-against-you theme since maybe Georgetown-Houston in 1984, with Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon. It’s not Magic and Bird, but it appeases our fascination with giant creatures roaming the earth and — what do you know? — blocking the sun.