Houston guards Emanuel Sharp (21) and Terrance Arceneaux (23) low-five during the first half of the Big 12 Finals, Saturday, March 15, 2025, in Kansas City, Missouri. | Raphael Fernandez/The Cougar
The top-seeded Houston men’s basketball team will make its return to Lucas Oil Stadium for the first time since 2021, the same site where its championship hopes were crushed four years ago in the Final Four. This time, the Cougars are looking to keep those dreams alive against No. 4 seed Purdue.
Houston, heading into its sixth consecutive Sweet Sixteen matchup, had to grind out the closing minutes of the 81-76 victory against No. 8 seed Gonzaga, in what many considered an “Elite Eight” caliber matchup.
Now, in the latest of swerves on the road to San Antonio, the Cougars are tasked with taking on the 2024 NCAA championship runner-up Boilermakers just a short drive from their backyard.
Another “road game” for the road warriors
Purdue’s campus is roughly 70 miles away from Indianapolis, ensuring there will be droves of black & gold throughout the 35,000 seats at Lucas Oil Stadium.
On the other hand, Houston fans will have to travel over 1,000 miles for Friday’s game, which is the longest distance any university must travel for the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
Numerous high-profile analysts, including longtime ESPN anchor Scott Van Pelt, have criticized the committee’s organization of the Midwest Region’s bracket.
“The Gonzaga thing is just the math and the seed that they’re on. This is geography; figure it out,” Van Pelt said. “It’s gonna be a giant home game for Purdue, which the one seed has to face in a round of sixteen game. That’s just poorly done.”
With all the vitriol on the outside, some teams might be inclined to echo those same sentiments about the tough tournament path they have been dealt.
Most–but not the program whose toughness is at the forefront of everything they do. Not the program that became the first to go a spotless 10-0 away from home in Big 12 conference play.
For Houston, it’s just another road-like environment in a season where they’ve already dealt with riotous crowds like The Phog in Allen Fieldhouse and United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock, where fans hurled a book of insults any time a Cougar went to the free-throw line.
Because of it, Houston has become better at withstanding anything thrown their way on the road, no matter the opponent or what is said.
Even with Purdue’s crowd advantage, players are well aware of the biggest challenges, which are the opponent itself and not geography.
“They’re a good team,” redshirt junior guard Emanuel Sharp said of Purdue. “The game would be tough wherever we play. We could play them at Fertitta, and it’s still gonna be a hard game. It’s Purdue at the end of the day.”
Purdue’s makeup
Of the sixteen teams that entered the weekend, Purdue is one of five with a first team All-American in junior point guard Braden Smith, who also won Big 10 Player of the Year.
Widely considered one of the best guards in college basketball, Smith has had a career year all across the board, averaging 16 points per game while dishing out 8.5 assists a night alongside 2.2 steals per game.
“He’s in the category of a stat line with just him and Magic (Johnson), so I mean he’s a pretty good player and I’m excited for the matchup,” junior guard Milos Uzan said.
Only two Big 10 players have ever recorded 450+ points, 250+ assists, 125+ rebounds and 60+ steals in a single season: Smith in the past two years, and Johnson in 1978-79.
Complimenting Smith in the backcourt is junior guard Fletcher Loyer, averaging a career-best 13.7 points per game while shooting 45.1% from three, one of the best marks in the nation.
Loyer has also shown the ability to get to the free-throw line at a high rate, averaging 4.8 free-throw attempts across his last eight games, making him a scoring threat even when his outside shot isn’t falling.
Despite all the talent in Purdue’s backcourt, it’s their junior forward Trey Kaufman-Ren who leads the Boilermakers in scoring, averaging 20.3 points per game, while also being their leading rebounder at 6.5 rebounds per game.
Kaufman-Ren has four 20+ point double-doubles on the season, including his most recent performance in Purdue’s 76-62 round of 32 victory over McNeese State. He tallied 22 points, alongside 15 boards, his most in a single game this year.
Similar to Houston’s graduate forward J’Wan Roberts, Kaufman-Ren is a polished interior scorer who uses his footwork in the post to his advantage while being a fearsome pick-and-roll partner to Smith.
Coming into Friday’s contest, Purdue is shooting 48.8% from the field, the 11th-best mark in college basketball, and the second-best of any remaining team in the tournament. Their 38.4% three-point percentage among the Sweet Sixteen field is also second, only to Houston’s 39.8%.
Pressure in the paint
Though Purdue’s big three provides an offensive punch that rivals some of the best trios in the nation, their lack of interior presence allows them to get punched right back.
The Boilermakers as a team only average 1.6 blocks per game on the season, the third-worst of all 364 Division I teams, which could signal a steady dose of Roberts, whose offensive skillset predicates on scoring down low.
One of the strengths of this Cougars team has been the perimeter shooting, and if Purdue decides to collapse on Roberts, it could mean increased three-point opportunities for Houston’s sharpshooting guards.
The Cougars’ vaunted forward rotation of Roberts, sophomore Joseph Tugler, and senior Ja’Vier Francis might also make a significant impact on the glass, with Purdue allowing a 28.4% offensive rebounding percentage to opponents this season.
In the 11 games where Houston has faced an opponent allowing an offensive rebounding percentage of 28.4% or higher, they have out-rebounded them on the offensive boards by an average of five, with four games of a margin larger than 10.
Staying in control
In a program that makes zero excuses, coach Kelvin Sampson and company only focus on the elements they can control.
From the outside looking in, people can make the excuse that injuries, scorching-hot shooting nights, and ice-cold shooting nights have all ended Houston’s March Madness runs since 2021.
But he and his group see it as discrediting the opponent, and know they still had opportunities to win those games.
It’s no different heading into Friday night. Sampson hasn’t brought up Purdue’s proximity advantage to his players. Or how many Purdue jerseys will fill the crowd or that if they advanced to the Elite Eight, it would be a similar scenario against either Tennessee or Kentucky.
“With Purdue, they’d be tough to beat no matter where we play,” Sampson said. “Got a tremendous challenge in front of us, we’re gonna focus on doing that the best we can, and we play a really good team Friday night….Those are the things that we can control and that’s what I’ll focus on.”
The Cougars will take on Purdue at 9:09 p.m. Friday. The game will air on TBS.
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“Fueled up: Houston set to face Purdue in Sweet 16” was originally posted on The Cougar