It had seemed like a really good day.  Purdue had comfortably won their game against CSU Fullerton, which made me happy.   Then, #13 Marshall upset Wichita State to become the second 13 seed to be playing in the Round of 32.  And as I was packing up my work computer to go home and get dinner for the family, I went to check the scores.  And popped up on the ESPN news feed was the horrible news.   Purdue’s star center Isaac Haas had fractured his elbow after a hard fall in the second half, and the injury would require surgery.  This would be the last game that the senior would play as a Boilermaker.

At first, all I could think about was how bad this was to the Boilermakers chances – when Haas is in the game, the offense often runs through him.  They dump the ball into the big man, and if the defense double teams him, he kicks it out to one of Purdue’s great three point shooters.  Leave him alone and he typically backs you up to the basket until he turns and lays the ball in softly off the backboard.

But then I thought about Isaac.  I have heard Isaac interviewed a few times and many stories about him, and he genuinely seems like just a really nice person.  He has dedicated his basketball to playing for his younger sister Erin who has epilepsy.  There is a really nice story that was written about Isaac in ESPN – http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/18166926/purdue-boilermakers-isaac-haas-playing-cure-sister-epilepsy.

Purdue is a senior-laden team, and it has been a really special group of seniors.  Haas, Vince Edwards, Dakota Mathias and PJ Thompson can claim that their recruiting class has won more games at Purdue than any other group before them.

When Isaac Haas was on the floor, he was almost always the biggest player on the court.  But off the court, you would find that the best part about Haas was how big his heart was.  And so my heart is broken that his senior season was ended too early – he deserved to be out there with his teammates to try to make one last run at a Final Four.