UConn vs Purdue: Weighing basketball powerhouse vs planes, trains and chicken nuggets
Connecticut and Purdue will clash in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament championship game on Monday night at State Farm Stadium.
UConn, the No. 1 overall seed and reigning national champions, is looking for its sixth national title and second in as many years. Fellow No. 1 seed Purdue seeks the first men’s basketball championship in school history.
The matchup promises to be an epic battle of big men, with UConn’s Donovan Clingan (7-foot-2, 280 pounds) facing Purdue’s Zach Edey (7-4, 300), the two-time national college player of the year.
While the championship will be decided on the court, The Arizona Republic’s in-depth review of the schools and their history lends a decided advantage to the group from West Lafayette, Indiana.
Consider …
Nicknames
Purdue: Boilermakers, which are Victorian-era locomotives; UConn: Huskies, the dog breed. That replaced an earlier nickname, Aggies. The current mascot is named Jonathan after Jonathan Trumbull, Connecticut’s Revolutionary War-era governor. EDGE: Purdue
Schools established
Purdue: 1869; UConn: 1881. EDGE: Purdue
School's founders
Purdue: John Purdue, a wealthy American industrialist in Lafayette, Indiana who donated the land where the university would be located; UConn: Charles and Augustus Storrs, brothers who donated land and money to start an agricultural school that would one day become a state university. EDGE: UConn, because two heads are better than one.
Average cost of tuition
(per U.S. News & World Report)
Purdue: $9,992 per year in-state, $28,794 out-of-state; UConn: $20,366/$43,034. EDGE: Purdue
Undergraduate students on campus
Purdue: 39,000; UConn: 19,000. EDGE: Purdue
Total alumni
Purdue: 600,000; UConn: 255,000. EDGE: Purdue
Famous alumni
Purdue: Neil Armstrong, John Wooden, Orville Redenbacher, Drew Brees; UConn: Meg Ryan, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Rebecca Lobo, Ray Allen, Bobby Moynihan. EDGE: Purdue
Famous innovation
Purdue: Robert C. Baker, the chicken nugget; UConn: David Lee, who shared 1996 Nobel Prize in physics for discovery of superfluidity in helium-3. EDGE: Purdue
Famous educator
Purdue: Amelia Earhart served as a “Counselor on Careers for Women” in 1935 until her disappearance in 1937; UConn: James C. Kaufman, psychology professor who has published more than 50 books and 300 papers, including study that spawned the “Sylvia Plath Effect.” EDGE: Purdue
Famous first
Purdue: Home to the first university-owned airport in the United States and Indiana's only nuclear reactor; UConn: The first school to win NCAA men's and women's basketball titles in the same season, in 2004 and again in 2014. Edge: UConn
Rivalry trophy
Purdue: Old Oaken Bucket, Indiana vs. Purdue football, dates to 1891; UConn: Ramnapping Trophy, UConn vs. Rhode Island football, 1936 to 1999. Edge: Purdue
Home court
Purdue: Mackey Arena, 14,876 capacity; UConn: Gampel Pavilion, 10,300 capacity.
Edge: Purdue
Last year's NCAA tournament
Purdue: No. 1 seed lost first-round game to Fairleigh Dickinson, 63–58, becoming the second No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in NCAA Tournament history; UConn: No. 4 seed won every game by double digits and defeated San Diego State, 76-59, to win program's fifth NCAA men's basketball title. Edge: UConn
NCAA championships
Purdue: Three: men's golf (1961), women's basketball (1999), women's golf (2010); UConn: 23: Women's basketball 11 (1995, 2000, '02, '03, '04, '09, '10, '13, '14, '15, '16); men's basketball 5 (1999, 2004, '11, '14, '23); field hockey 5 (1981, '85, 2013, '14, '17); men's soccer 2 (1981, 2000). Edge: UConn
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: UConn vs Purdue: Hoops powerhouse vs planes, trains, chicken nuggets?