Purdue Basketball Preview: Houston at the NCAA Tournament

INDIANAPOLIS — In yet another Sweet 16, Purdue will need to pull a monumental upset Friday night to keep advancing in the NCAA Tournament, as it meets top-seeded Houston at Lucas Oil Stadium.

DETAILS: Friday, March 28, 2025 | 10:09 p.m. ET | TV: TBS/TruTV (Andrew Catalon, Steve Lappas, Evan Washburn) | Radio: Purdue Radio Network
4 seed PURDUE (24-11): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS
1 seed HOUSTON (32-4): ROSTER | SCHEDULE | STATS

Team	AP	Coaches	NET	KenPom	KenPom Win%
Purdue	22	22	19	16	27%
Houston	2	2	3	2	73%

A FEW THINGS ABOUT PURDUE

• Playing in its sixth Sweet 16 out of the past eight tournaments, Purdue’s looking to move to the Round of Eight for the second time in the past five tournaments.

• Purdue has never beaten a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, 0-8 all-time, its most recent opportunity being Connecticut in last year’s national title game.

Prior meetings with No. 1 seeds.
1997: Kansas (Round 2)
2003: Texas (Round 2)
2007: Florida (Round 2)
2009: Connecticut (Sweet 16)
2010: Duke (Sweet 16)
2017: Kansas (Sweet 16)
2019: Virginia (Elite Eight)
2024: Connecticut (National Title Game)

• Purdue beat High Point and McNeese State in Providence last weekend to reach Indianapolis, playing in its third tournament in Indy in five years. The COVID Bubble tournament was held in Lucas Oil in 2021, and last season Purdue played through Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Rounds 1 and 2, beating Grambling and Utah State to reach Detroit on its way to Glendale.

• Purdue outrebounded its first two NCAA Tournaments by an average of 19 per game, with 31 offensive rebounds. Trey Kaufman-Renn averaged 11.5 rebounds, roughly double his average for the season.

• In Providence, Purdue drew 40 fouls and was called for only 26, a stark reversal from how the Big Ten season went.

ABOUT THIS GAME

• Houston, the Big 12 champs, is the best defensive team in college basketball by almost every measure, No. 1 in defensive efficiency and scoring defense most notably.

• The Cougars shoot an NCAA-best 39.8 percent from three-point range, on an average of about 20 attempts per game. Their three highest-volume players all shoot better than 42 percent — Milos Uzan (43.7 percent), Emmanuel Sharp (43.2) and LJ Cryer (42.8).

• Cryer, Houston’s leading scorer, averaging 15.6 points, officially visited Purdue as a junior before signing with Baylor, with whom he won a national title in the Indy Bubble, then transferring to Houston. Carsen Edwards was central to Cryer’s interest in the Boilermakers. They’re both from the Houston area.

• Houston’s going to run a lot of the same sort of short-roll-minded pick-and-roll offense to get driving opportunities, in part for big man J’Wan Roberts, who averages about 11 points per game. The tricky part, though, is that the ball-handler is normally going to be one of those 40-plus-percent three-point shooters, so accounting for that is the same challenge Purdue opponents encounter when dealing with Braden Smith.

THREE KEYS FOR PURDUE

POISE AND DECISION-MAKING	REBOUNDING	TURN HOUSTON OVER
Purdue’s going to have to steady against a defense hell-bent on speeding it up. The Boilermakers may be able to use Houston’s aggressiveness against it, but not if it loses its cool. Purdue has to make threes and it’s not going to get good ones without a level head.	The Boilermakers were excellent on the glass in Providence, but this is a different team. Houston is a great offensive rebounding team and elite three-point shooting team. That’s a really scary mix.	Easy baskets are gold. More so, every possession and one way to breach Houston’s defense is to not let it set up.

GOLDANDBLACK.COM PREDICTION: HOUSTON 76, PURDUE 70

It’s not often Purdue is a real underdog, but in this case, that’s the deal. Can Purdue win this game? Sure. But Houston has been so dominant all season and is so formidable defensively, that it has absolutely earned the benefit of the here against a Boilermaker team that has done a good job most of the season masking limitations that could be laid bare by Houston if the Boilermakers aren’t careful. It’s going to take more than careful to win; it might take near flawlessness, including a big-time three-point shooting game, a heroic rebounding effort and minimal turnovers. That’s a lot.