Elite Eight Saturday REACTION! Arizona overpowers Purdue; Illinois runs away from Iowa + Tom Fornelli joins!
Eye On College Basketball
CBS Sports
4.6 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 29 March 2026
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Gary Parrish and David Cobb recap Saturday's Elite Eight matchups. Arizona beats Purdue in the end and Illinois is headed back to the Final Four after beating Iowa. Plus, a cameo from Cover 3's Tom Fornelli!
(0:00) Intro + tickets are punched to Indianapolis
(1:00) Arizona bullies Purdue in the second half to reach the Final Four
(14:30) Purdue’s awesome 4-year run comes to an end
(19:00) Illinois pulls away late from Iowa + Tom Fornelli joins!
(49:30) What a first season for Ben McCollum and Iowa basketball
(57:10) 5-Hour Energy Starting 5
(39:30) Setting up Sunday’s Elite Eight games
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there. I am Gary Parrish. |
| 0:14.8 | Welcome back to CBS Sports Eye on College Basketball podcast, where we sometimes discuss |
| 0:18.7 | Camel Fighting Dodo Birds and leaky black david |
| 0:21.6 | cobb is here with me if you're watching on youtube honor brandon davy smash the like button |
| 0:26.1 | and if you haven't yet subscribed to the i own college basketball podcast please do that |
| 0:29.9 | wherever you subscribe to podcasts like apple and spotify let's get into it two tickets to the |
| 0:36.0 | two thousand 26 final four They were punched on Saturday. |
| 0:39.7 | Congrats to Illinois. Congrats to Arizona. Needless to say, we will get to both, but I want to start in the West region. |
| 0:47.2 | Final score, Arizona 79, Purdue 64. It just went final about 25 minutes ago. |
| 0:53.8 | Tommy Lloyd's Wildcats are in the Final four after winning the Big 12 regular season title and the Big 12 tournament. 36 and 2. That's the record right now. Only losses at Kansas by 4 and at home to Texas Tech by 3 in overtime. Very close to be in 38.0 right now. Cobb, I guess it's no surprise whenever a number |
| 1:14.0 | one seed makes the final four. It is the expected outcome. But Arizona got here by winning its first |
| 1:19.9 | game by 34, round of 32 by 12, sweet 16 by 21, elite eight, another double digit victory. |
| 1:28.5 | Are you surprised they haven't even really been challenged, at least not in the second |
| 1:32.0 | half of any of these games? |
| 1:34.0 | Yeah, on a certain level, yes. |
| 1:35.9 | I mean, they were challenged in this game, though, but the second half demonstrated their |
| 1:40.6 | elite year. |
| 1:41.4 | They started getting out in transition. |
| 1:43.4 | They got to the free throw line, which is a vital source of points for a team that does not make three-pointers. So they were able to get Purdue, I mean, from the 12 and a half minute mark on, they were shooting free throws after every Purdue foul. So that was huge. And then Co-A-Pete was the version of Co-A-Pete that we saw in the season opener, right? Like the kind of the version of him that we thought we would get all year. So that was huge. And I mean, it's just great both these programs. You know, in our lifetime, we remember Illinois in the Final Four. You and I remember Arizona in a Final Four, but none of these players for either of these teams were alive when their teams last went to the |
| 2:19.0 | Final Four. I guess some of the Illinois guys might have been alive in 05, maybe. But yeah, so, |
| 2:26.9 | no, Arizona was tested. They were tested in this first half, but just completely steamrolled Purdue |
| 2:34.0 | in the second half by playing their completely steamrolled Purdue in the second |
... |
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