For 39 minutes and 59 seconds, the Purdue Boilermakers stood toe-to-toe with the top-seeded Houston Cougars. That final second ended their season with a 62-60 loss.
With 2.2 seconds remaining in the 2025 NCAA Midwest Regional semifinal on Friday night, the Cougars executed a perfect inbounds play, which broke a 60-60 tie and the hearts of Purdue fans.
Houston, which improved to 33-4 and has not lost since February 1, faces Tennessee on Sunday with a berth in the Final Four on the line. Purdue finished its 2024-25 season at 24-12.
On paper, the game was previewed to be a fairly easy win for Houston. It turned out to be anything but easy, but the moral victory is not the salve needed for the wounds inflicted on Boiler Nation.
The first half of Friday’s contest was about as even as an opening 20 minutes could be.
Purdue scored the game’s first four points, but neither team held a lead of more than three after that. In the first half, Purdue and Houston were tied seven times.
Boilermaker Fletcher Loyer was the one leading his team’s way early. The junior shooting guard paced Purdue with 12 points in the opening half, draining two of his three shots from distance. All-Big 10 players Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn struggled to find their way early, combining for just four made field goals.
Purdue’s bench players did not scratch the scoring column in the first half.
Houston’s head coach, Kelvin Sampson, threw different defensive looks Smith’s way all night, and Purdue head coach Matt Painter sought solutions for them all night long.
“Yeah, they’re a very good defensive team,” explained Painter. “We wanted to get in some different actions and get Braden some more space and play with the pace, but we also knew that he had to get the basketball out of his hands when they got aggressive.”
Although Smith dished out 15 assists, that aggressiveness caused him to score just seven points, well below his season average of 15.8 per game. His two free throws with 0.3 seconds remaining gave the Boilers a 31-29 lead at the break.
The Cougars were guided early and late by the career night produced by Milos Uzan. All he did was convert four of his six three-point attempts in the first half; the rest of his teammates were just 1-for-9 from beyond the arc. Uzan would finish the game with a career-high six made three-pointers.
As closely competitive as the first half was, Houston asserted its dominance right away in the opening minutes of the second half. Cougar forward Emanuel Sharp scored seven points during his team’s 11-1 run after the intermission, and Houston blitzed to a 40-32 lead with 16:14 remaining.
Despite that opening four minutes, Purdue took that onslaught and kept the game within striking distance. Sophomore reserve Camden Heide finally gave the Boilers some points off the bench by nailing the first of his three second-half three-pointers to squelch Houston’s run.
After that, the Cougars’ lead stayed between five and seven points for most of the next nine minutes. However, Uzan’s sixth long-distance bucket of the game with just under eight minutes to go gave Houston its largest lead of the game, 56-46.
From there, Purdue valiantly clawed back and clamped down defensively. They allowed Houston just one free throw over the next four minutes, and after Kaufman-Renn drained two free throws with 4:17 remaining, the score was 57-55.
Houston guard L.J. Cryer, a third-team All-American this season, finally made an impact for his team by drilling his only three-pointer of the game with 3:34 to go. That made the score 60-55, but the Cougars would not score again until the final second of the game.
In the meantime, Purdue knotted the score at 60 thanks to a clutch three-point basket from Heide with 35 seconds left. That set up the heartbreak for those dressed in black and gold.
After an out-of-bounds play was reviewed with 2.2 seconds remaining, Houston was awarded the ball underneath its basket.
Uzan inbounded the ball to Joseph Tugler, who broke from the free-throw line and caught the ball on the left side of the lane. Smith, who was initially guarding Uzan, ran off to help double-team Cryer in the far corner. Tugler saw that Uzan was now free of any Boilermaker defender and gave the ball right back to Uzan, who converted the give-and-go layup over C.J. Cox with 0.9 seconds to go.
Painter explained the rationale behind his defensive strategy on the fateful play.
“So we were going to help out to the outer third, and we talked about the flair going out the other side,” said Painter. “When they went that way, Trey’s man was able to step to the basketball there, but when you saw Myles (Colvin) make that play earlier and he gets that steal. So we just help out on that outer third, and then the other guy who was guarding the guy coming out on the outer third, takes the ball. So when Braden jumped out to the other side, it opened up that seam and we had to get back there. We just didn’t cover it back up.”
Sampson’s play had several options, and he said his guys made the correct read based on how Purdue defended it.
“Well, if the guy guarding the inbounder (Smith) takes the roller, then the guy that threw the ball in is going to be open, and that’s what we read,” Sampson said. “JoJo (Tugler) set a great screen, and I think (Cryer) dragged two guys with him, which means we were four on three. They were two on one, which means we’re four on three, and we’re always talking to our guys about hunting numbers advantages. Once you have the number advantage, now it becomes the right read.”
It was not the way they wanted their season to end, but Purdue’s 2024-25 season should be viewed as a success. After losing two-time Player of the Year Zach Edey, Painter pulled the strings to reinvent the Boilermakers and advance to their sixth Sweet 16 appearance in their last eight tournaments.
Purdue loses only one senior, Caleb Furst, to graduation from this year’s squad. 7’4″ freshman Daniel Jacobsen, who was injured and lost for the year in the second game of the year, returns.
Much remains to be seen on how Painter and his staff navigate the transfer portal, both incoming and outgoing, to fully predict next season’s prospects.
One thing is for sure: Painter was very pleased with this year’s team Friday night
“Really proud of our guys. I thought we had a great fight tonight and laid it all on the line. That’s the only thing you can ask, for your team to give everything they had. Houston was one play better than us, and I thought it was one of those games that both teams deserve to win.”
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