#HaarmsHair
Last night, the Purdue Boilermakers beat the Butler Bulldogs 76-73 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Though that wasn’t really a surprise, as Purdue was the second seed and the Bulldogs were the tenth seed, the biggest surprise was the new starting center for the Boilermakers, Matt Haarms.
Normally, Isaac Haas, a 2.18m senior, would be the starting center, but he fractured his elbow in the first round of the tournament. As he was declared out for the rest of the season, that meant it would be the end of his college career. But, he wanted to do everything to be able to play and therefore, he was fitted a brace that would keep his elbow steady, but the NCAA didn’t want to clear the brace.
His mother reacted in a tweet, as it was the second ‘injustice’ that was done to her son. In the game against the Cal State Fullerton Titans, the opponents weren’t able to stop Haas, so their only measure was to foul him whenever he was near the basket, as they knew no referee was going to call every foul. In the end, one of the Titans, Dominik Heinzl, threw Haas to the floor and he fractured his elbow.
https://twitter.com/RachelCHaas/status/975410237317484544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indystar.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2Fcollege%2Fpurdue%2F2018%2F03%2F18%2Fisaac-haas-mom-just-one-more-time-they-let-him-down%2F436281002%2F&tfw_creator=indystar&tfw_site=indystar
But, the Boilermakers found a worthy replacement in the 2.21m Freshman, Matt Haarms. This game, he had to almost double his playing minutes, as he normally only played around 16 minutes per game, and ended up playing almost 30 minutes. Though he did a great job on the court, getting 7 points, 6 rebounds, two blocks and doing a great job on defense, the real story in the game was #HaarmsHair. The commentators called him Kenickie (from Grease), and the NCAA even made a hair compilation of Haarms throughout the game. Though it was nothing new for the Boilermakers’ fans, yesterday, the entire nation was introduced to #HaarmsHair.
https://twitter.com/marchmadness/status/975460711039037440
But, even though #HaarmsHair was the story of the day, Haarms did a great job stepping in for Isaac Haas and Purdue will continue their NCAA Tournament next weekend against Texas Tech in the Sweet 16.
