Possessing a seven-point lead with 48 seconds left to go, it would have seemed sure that if nothing else, the Purdue Boilermakers would live to see two more days in their college basketball season before meeting up with Kentucky in Saturday’s third round of the NCAA tournament at Louisville.

But the Boilermakers fell apart late, got taken to overtime and lost to the eighth-seeded Cincinnati Bearcats, 66-65, in tonight’s second-round game. Purdue, which at one point captured eight of nine games late in the season just to get into the NCAA tournament conversation at all, couldn’t put the finishing touches on a game it will regret losing for a long time.

You can argue, of course, how much this game really mattered in the sense of most likely having Kentucky staring across from them in the next game. But in reality, that fact made this game all the more important and much more of a stinging defeat for Purdue. If you assume that undefeated Kentucky would handle either the Boilermakers or Bearcats coming out of this game (assuming UK beats Hampton, you know), then tonight’s game marked perhaps the only real chance for either school to get a win in this year’s NCAA tournament.

This year is Purdue’s first appearance in the Big Dance in three years. The Boilermakers haven’t made the second weekend of the tournament since 2010. A win tonight would have been important in the progress of Purdue’s rebuild from a team that went 31-35 the past two seasons to one that tied for third in the Big Ten and made it to the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament.

But finishing 21-13 will feel a little hollow after letting tonight’s game slip away. Key free throws were missed, Cincinnati got multiple looks close to the rim at the end of regulation and, in overtime, and the Boilermakers failed to hit important shots from the floor, going just 3-for-9 in the overtime period.

All of that allowed Cincinnati (23-10) the chance to play giant-killers Saturday, should Kentucky advance as expected later tonight. Purdue knows it should be the one in that spot, however, and that’s going to take a while to get over.

Ed Morgans is an ACC Basketball Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @writered21 and add him to your network on Google.