“NO ONE SAID IT WAS GOING TO BE EASY TRYING TO MAKE THIS RUN. MY GUYS, I HAVE FULL CONFIDENCE IN THEM. WE ALL HAVE FULL CONFIDENCE IN EACH OTHER.”– JUSTICE SUEING
Make no mistake: As the No. 1 seed in the tournament and a team that’s already beaten the Buckeyes twice in 2022-23, Purdue is a steep mountain to climb regardless. But on less than 24 hours’ notice after a three-game grind in consecutive days, the challenge is all the more daunting for the scarlet and gray.
Given the momentum they’ve gathered this week, though, it may not be a bad thing.
“(The physical demand) was very difficult. As soon as I leave here, I'm getting an ice bath right away,” Bruce Thornton said after Ohio State’s 68-58 win over Michigan State on Friday. “It's hard, but at the end of the day, I want to win so bad. I want to just prove people wrong. I want to show everybody what this team is really made of. We went through a big slump, but we keep fighting. We keep showing people that we belong. We belong here. I see these guys put in so much work, the coaching staff and just the fans, man. I just feel like we're going to keep working, keep surprising people if we keep playing like this.”
“No one said it was going to be easy trying to make this run,” Sueing said. “My guys, I have full confidence in them. We all have full confidence in each other. Like Bruce said, we're trying to prove that we need to be there, and I think we've done that as a team collectively and really just paid attention to our mentality coming into each and every game.”