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Houston pushes past Purdue with terrific late-game execution on an inbounds

After a terrific set of games on Thursday night, Friday’s slate matched the drama, excitement, and quality basketball in all four games. In the South Region, Michigan State held off Ole Miss 73-70 while Auburn got the best of Michigan 78-65 fueled by a 48-point second half. The first game in Indianapolis at the Midwest regional saw Tennessee blitz Kentucky 78-65, setting the stage for the nightcap between Houston and Purdue.

As expected in any game involving Houston, the Cougars’ Sweet 16 matchup with Purdue was close, low-scoring, and incredibly physical on Friday night in Indianapolis. Played inside Lucas Oil Stadium, it wasn’t quite NFL-level physicality, but the way the Cougars wear you down defensively it probably felt pretty close for the Purdue players.

There wasn’t much separating these two teams throughout the game, with Purdue holding a 31-29 halftime lead after a mini flurry of scoring over the final three minutes of the half. Houston came out of the locker room as the stronger side, going on a 11-1 run to take a 40-32 lead as Emanuel Sharp scored seven points in the opening four minutes of the half. Purdue would push the deficit to three or less multiple times over the next 15 minutes, but the Houston defense continued to get the necessary stops.

After a Myles Colvin three made it 50-46 Houston with under ten minutes left, the pro-Purdue crowd had a bit of life. Milos Uzan, a guy who has seemingly gotten better with each and every game, took things over for Houston after that shot though. Uzan canned back-to-back threes just over a minute apart to prompt a Matt Painter timeout as the Houston lead extended to ten with under eight minutes to play.

Braden Smith’s playmaking kept Purdue in it all the way through, as the junior point guard dished out ten second half assists on 11 Purdue made field goals. With under a minute to go and trailing by three, Smith missed a three, but the rebound was hauled in by Trey Kaufman-Renn. Smith dribbled around for a while after that, seemingly without many options, until firing a pass to a wide-open Camden Heide in the corner, who had just enough time to bury a three-pointer before the shot clock expired to tie the game at 60-60 with 35 seconds to play.

Uzan had a chance to win it for Houston with five seconds left, but his mid-range jumper bounced off the rim. The rebound bounced out of bounds off of Purdue though, giving the top-seeded Cougars one last chance to win it in regulation.

Although it didn’t sound drawn up in the postgame interview, the BLOB play Kelvin Sampson had his Cougars run worked to perfection.

As Joseph Tugler slipped out of a screen, he noticed Uzan, the in-bounder, was wide-open, and after receiving the ball, promptly passed the ball right back to Uzan, who laid it in with 0.9 seconds to play, effectively ending the game as Houston escaped a semi-road game against Purdue 62-60.

Braden Smith’s astounding 15 assists would go down in a losing effort, but the hat goes off to the junior guard on a tremendous season. Milos Uzan was a difference-maker throughout the second half, hitting clutch threes and scoring the winning bucket, as he led the team in scoring with 22 points on six three-pointers while dishing out six assists.

The Houston win sets up a date with Tennessee on Sunday in Indianapolis with a Final Four berth at stake.

Other Things to Note:

• The Elite Eight tips off Saturday at 6:09 ET on TBS with Texas Tech and Florida before Duke and Alabama battle for the right to go to San Antonio