Purdue-Houston series had provocative beginning

Purdue and Houston will not be meeting in a converted football stadium for the first time on Friday night.

The schools have met just three times on the basketball court, with the Boilermakers winning the last two games in blowout wins in 1993 and 1998. The 1981 game, held in front of 8,158 fans at the cavernous Louisiana Superdome, sparked the most intrigue.

Heading into the post-Christmas matchup with legendary and towel chewing coach Guy Lewis and the early iteration of Phi Slama Jamma, Coach Gene Keady’s second Boilermaker team struggled to a 3-4 record losing those games by a combined 16 points. The schedule was brutal as the Boilermakers dropped road nail biters at DePaul and Syracuse, powerhouses at the time under coaches Ray Meyer and Jim Boeheim) and to a Billy Tubbs’ Oklahoma Sooners and a home heartbreaker to Denny Crum’s Louisville Cardinals. Both Houston and Louisville made the 1982 Final Four, which was played at The Superdome (remember Michael Jordan’s game-winner to defeat Georgetown?)

Purdue walk-on Rowinski debuts against Cougars’ budding star

As the team’s senior manager, I knew firsthand that the Boilermakers were a dysfunctional lot in 1981-82. They struggled with something Keady valued most: senior leadership. Keady was looking for a spark and decided to insert walk-on center Jim Rowinski into the starting lineup. Rowinski, a Long Island native who passed away last year, wasn’t bothered that he would be battling Hakeem Olajuwon. Statistically, Rowinski outplayed the future NBA Hall of Famer with nine points and 10 rebounds compared to just four points and four boards for the Lagos, Nigeria native.

The 18th-ranked Cougars played without a key component, Clyde “The Glide” Drexler, who was injured. Purdue had several chances to win the game. In the closing minutes, senior guard and future college coach Kevin Stallings missed a jumper with eight seconds left that would have given Purdue the lead and also had a last-second desperation shot. Fellow Boilermaker senior and future NBA first-round pick Keith Edmonson, who led the Big Ten in scoring and led all scorers in the game with 20 points, for some reason deferred to Stallings for the possible game-winner with eight seconds left. After the Stallings miss, Stallings fouled the Cougars’ Lynden Rose, who missed the front end of the one and one. Purdue quickly called timeout, but Lewis’s defense forced Stallings to take a half court shot at the buzzer, and it missed. Stallings was a master of the half-court shot, however, often putting on a show after practice, as I had seen him make a three-quarter-court shot from behind his back (no less) on occasion.

The final score was 59-58 Houston. It was another tough loss for Purdue. And the slide continued. The next night, Purdue lost an eight-point decision to Wake Forest, and Rowinski suffered a stress fracture that sidelined him for the rest of the season. Two years later, Rowinski was the Big Ten’s Silver Basketball winner as the league’s MVP. Oh well.

The 1981-82 Boilermakers rallied to an 11-7 league record and they eked their way into the NIT, thanks to a controversial last-second foul call against Iowa on Senior Day that delivered the Boilermaker to the necessary over .500 record. It lost to Bradley in the title game in Madison Square Garden.

Boilermakers Spank Cougars in last two meetings

On Glenn Robinson put on a show with 33 points and some spectacular dunks as Purdue blew out Houston 114-90 in front of 14,000 folks at the “Boilermaker Blockbuster” at Market Square Arena. Junior Cuonzo Martin added 21 points and sophomore Justin Jennings added highlight reel slams as the Boilermakers posted its highest point total in 18 years.

Four years and a month later, the ninth-ranked Boilermakers took a break from conference play to hammer a hapless Cougar squad, 86-53. Thirty-three-point road victories are hard to come by, especially against a proud program like Houston. The 1997-98 Boilermakers appeared poised to make a Final Four run buoyed by seniors Brad Miller and Chad Austin, but a late-season injury to standout sophomore guard Jaraan Cornell hampered Purdue’s aspirations.

More: Memories of Purdue great Jim Rowinski