Making the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament has become commonplace for the Purdue Boilermakers. Saturday’s 76-62 second-round victory over McNeese marked the sixth time in the last eight tournaments that the Boilers advanced to the second weekend. Highlights of the Purdue/McNeese game can be seen here:
Beating two double-digit seeds was nice, albeit expected, but the Boilermakers’ next opponent resembles nothing like those mid-major schools. The University of Houston awaits the Boilers, and the top-seeded Cougars have real aspirations of cutting down the nets after next month’s championship game in San Antonio.
At 32-4 after beating Gonzaga on Saturday, Houston is currently tied with Duke for the most wins of any Division 1 team, and they are rolling at just the right time. The #2-ranked Cougars have won 15 games in a row, having last lost to Texas Tech in overtime on February 1. Three of their four losses were in overtime, and the other was to overall top-seed Auburn by five points in November.
Gonzaga coach Mark Few came away very impressed with the Cougars.
“I’m telling you, Houston was everything and more that we thought they were going to be,” said Few.
To put it mildly, Purdue and head coach Matt Painter will face their most daunting challenge of the season at Lucas Oil Stadium on Friday night. Before tip-off, here is what those unfamiliar with the Cougars need to know about them and what the Boilers must do to have a hope of advancing.
When Houston has possession of the ball, Purdue will need to muster the finest defensive effort of their season. Saying the Cougars can score in bunches would be a vast understatement.
Four Houston players average double figures in scoring, led by guard L.J. Cryer, a Baylor transfer, who puts up 15.2 points per contest. Cryer is followed on the scoring list by Emanuel Sharp (12.5), Milos Uzan (11.6), and J’Wan Roberts (10.7).
The Cougars shoot 39.4% from three-point range, which is second-best nationally behind Bradley University. Cryer, Sharp, and Uzan all shoot better than 42% from distance.
They take care of the basketball, too, turning it over on less than 15% of its possessions (9.4 per game), and they rank ninth in the country in turnover margin at +4.5/game.
In other words, Houston is solid offensively and will be one of Purdue’s most difficult challenges of the season to stop.
If Houston’s offense seems impressive, their historic defensive prowess this season has turned heads and made believers of the Cougars across the country.
Purdue faces the daunting task of trying to score against Houston. Head coach Kelvin Sampson’s squad is the stingiest in all of college basketball, giving up just 58.4 points per game. Coupled with their 74.5 points per game on offense, Houston is also tied for fourth among Division I teams in scoring margin.
Shooting the basketball successfully has been next to impossible for those who have played Houston in 2024-25. Teams are shooting 30.6% from three against Houston, the 25th best mark in the country. In addition, teams are shooting just 44.3% from inside the arc, the fifth-best mark in the country.
This version of Houston is not to be confused with the big, bad Phil Slama Jama teams of the 1980s. They do not have the size of Hakeem Olajuwon or the freakish athletic ability of Clyde Drexler, but the Cougars still have an elite rim protector. Despite not having that elite big man, Houston has the fifth-best block rate in the country (4.6 per game), led by 6’8″ forward Joseph Tuggler’s two blocks per contest.
Not only do they score and defend, but Houston rebounds prolifically. Over the course of his career, Sampson has become famous for his rebounding drills and the ferocity his teams use to attack the glass. That’s no different with this year’s Houston squad, who grab 5.2 more boards than their opponents. The Cougars have six different players averaging at least three rebounds per game, led by Roberts at 6.3 boards per game.
In comparison, Purdue collects just 2.4 more caroms than their adversaries.
Houston’s proficiency on both ends of the court and how heavy the task is to combat them is not lost on Painter.
“Their big guys can go make plays, their guards can go make plays, they make three’s, they kill you on the glass, they are superior defensively, so that’s a good recipe for success right there,” Painter said Wednesday. “When you can be efficient from an offensive standpoint, and be dominant defensively, and so like if one thing is struggling, they can dominate in the other area, but if both areas are dominating, that’s where they steamroll people.”
If this game were played on paper, Purdue might as well stay in West Lafayette instead of showing up in Indianapolis. But since this tournament has been built on magical moments throughout its history, anything can happen- and sometimes it has. March is known for its Cinderellas, and Purdue, despite their rich tradition, must make sure they play their best before midnight strikes.
Unfortunately, the odds are against the Boilers. Not only are they 7.5 point underdogs according to BetMGM Sportsbook, #4 seeds are just 25-56 since 1985 against #1 seeds.
If that was not enough hurdles to clear, the transfer portal officially opened on Monday, meaning that coaches in the Sweet 16 are working double duty. While preparing for the Cougars, Painter will have to have at least one eye on portal entrants and check in to see who might be interested in setting up visits to West Lafayette.
According to Painter, that is simply life as one of the elite programs in the country.
“You just gotta be on the phone, you gotta do your job, you gotta keep your focus,” Painter said. “(The tournament) is the most important stuff. You work like hell to be in this position and now here you are, you want to play well in the Sweet 16.”
If Painter’s 20 years of experience and 471 wins at the helm of Purdue are any indication, the Boilers will be in a perfect position to pull off the upset on Friday.
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