They lost to a dominant Arizona team, but Purdue's noble seniors left their mark on Purdue and college basketball

Four-year seniors who stay at the same school are almost as extinct as the dinosaurs. But Purdue does things its own way. Another inspiring run for the Boilers, who will just keep knocking at the door

Here is everything you need to know about the three noble seniors – Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn – whose title dreams were dashed Saturday night in a 79-64 loss to No. 1 seed Arizona (the team I picked to win it all before the tournament, the team I’m still bullish on). It comes as no solace that the Boilers once again ran into a buzzsaw as they flew close to the sun and competed in the Elite Eight, but that’s not what Matt Painter wanted to talk about when he took the microphone and put the seniors’ accomplishments into excellent perspective.

(It’s a long quotation. Stick with it. Painter has something to say.)

“Really proud of these three guys sitting right here (at the post-game press conference) and everything they’ve done for our program,” he said. “Really set a standard of how to go about their business. It’s going to be hard to emulate that. In today’s game, having three guys come and stick it out and fight through adversity and keep making our program better.

“They got the most wins in school history. They got the most tournament wins in school history. They got two Big Ten Championships. They got two Big Ten Tournament titles. You know, they showed up every day and worked. That’s what you want. A lot of people look at it like, it can’t keep happening, but in today’s landscape, but these guys proved that it can. All three of them will get their degrees from Purdue University, which means something. With the rules and how everything is, it’s diminishing education. It’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard in my life, because all of this is taking opportunities in education and helped our lives and helped our families.