Purdue is heading to the Sweet 16 again.
The No. 4 Boilermakers jumped out to a big lead over No. 12 McNeese in the first half on the way to a 76-62 win in the second round of the NCAA tournament. It wasn’t nearly as pretty in the second half, but Purdue built itself so much of a cushion in the first 20 minutes that its struggles in the final 20 minutes didn’t matter.
Purdue led 38-20 at the break as McNeese struggled on both ends of the floor. The Cowboys shot just 31% from the field, got out-rebounded by 10 and Purdue players consistently got great looks behind the arc and by the basket. For a brief moment, it looked like the Cowboys were going to score fewer than 20 points in the half a game after Clemson had just 13 against McNeese on Thursday.
The second half wasn’t much better, even if Purdue did all it could to give McNeese a chance to get back into the game. The Boilermakers went over six minutes without a field goal until a layup by Trey Kaufman-Renn with 9:49 to go. But McNeese had cut just three points from Purdue’s lead during that span thanks to a crucial set of technical fouls.
With the Cowboys trailing 48-28, Christian Shumate got called for a foul in the paint on Kaufman-Renn. That led to McNeese head coach Will Wade getting a technical ahead of the TV timeout and Shumate got a technical himself as he walked to the bench.
Purdue made five of the ensuing six free throws to push the lead to 25 and effectively end the game. Kaufman-Renn finished with a game-high 22 points and 15 rebounds.
McNeese’s loss means No. 12 Colorado State and No. 11 Drake are the only teams seeded 11 or lower remaining in the men’s tournament. Drake plays No. 3 Texas Tech later Saturday and CSU faces No. 4 Maryland on Sunday. After all 16 top-four seeds won their first-round games for the first time since 2017, there’s a very strong chance there will be no double-digit seeds advancing past the first weekend of the 2025 tournament.
The game is the last one for Wade as McNeese’s coach. The ex-LSU coach is set to be announced as the new NC State coach in the coming days after the school fired Kevin Keatts at the end of the season. The Wolfpack made a coaching change just a year after a surprise run to the Final Four.
Wade was transparent about his conversations with NC State before the NCAA tournament and they clearly were no distraction against Clemson. But the Cowboys simply didn’t have the defensive intensity on Saturday that they did in the first round.
Purdue, meanwhile, is back in the Sweet 16 for the second straight season after becoming just the second No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in 2023. The Boilermakers bounced back to make it to the national title game in 2024, and they are now two wins away from another Final Four appearance.
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