Purdue rides late push to Round 1 NCAA Tournament win over High Point

Purdue is safely through to the Round of 32, rolling into the second game of the NCAA Tournament after beating High Point, 75-63, on Thursday. It was far from the best performance of the Boilermakers, but they avoided the dreaded double-digit upset to get rolling.

At halftime, Purdue had built a 10-point lead over the Panthers and appeared ready to cruise away to an easy win. However, the Boilermakers struggled to find a comfortable lead until late in the game.

In the second half, High Point was able to make it a 3-point game at 59-56 with 7:47 remaining. It had to give some fans an uneasy feeling after upsets of years past, but not this time around.

The Boilermakers responded with a 13-2 run to push to their largest lead of the game with just over a minute remaining in the game and the rest was history. Braden Smith had 7 points in that crucial run with the Big Ten Player of the Year delivering in crunch time.

However, it was Trey Kaufman-Renn who did a lot of the heavy lifting earlier in the game for Matt Painter’s group. He finished with a game-high 21 points on an efficient 10-for-16 shooting to go with 8 rebounds as the Panthers struggled to contain the veteran forward all game long.

For Smith, he finished with 20 points and 6 assists, but the rest of the team struggled a bit outside of Kaufman-Renn and Smith.

The area where Purdue dominated came on the glass where the Boilermakers grabbed 19 offensive rebounds and had a +21 advantage on the glass. That performance allowed the Boilermakers to ride a 20-8 edge in 2nd-chance points to the win over the Panthers.

Even after advancing to the national finals last year, this performance had to feel a little like Purdue getting the monkey off its back to start the Big Dance. The Boilermakers rode Zach Edey throughout March Madness a season ago, and Matt Painter’s other blunders against double-digit seeds are well-documented.

Now, Purdue can relax and ease into its game moving forward. The Boilermakers will next face the winner of 5-seed Clemson vs. 12-seed McNeese State on Saturday.

Paul Harvey

Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.