The Purdue men's basketball team outlasted High Point University on Thursday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Much to the pleasure of their fans, head coach Matt Painter and his team avoided an upset in the first round, which they have been prone to doing in recent years.
However, the Boilermakers are not out of the woods yet. They were slated to take on the winner of Clemson, a No. 5 seed, and McNeese State, a No. 12 seed. The latter was the automatic qualifier from the Southland Conference, but they were able to pull off a surprise victory against the Tigers on Thursday.
The pressure is on Matt Painter and Purdue after McNeese upset
Now that Purdue will be facing the McNeese State Cowboys, a No. 12 seed, in the Round of 32, the Boilermakers are on upset watch once again. While Purdue has lost three times in the second round of the tournament under coach Painter, fortunately, that has not occurred since 2015.
While Purdue is famous for dropping games to No. 16 seed Farleigh Dickinson and No. 14 seed North Texas, the Boilermakers seem to have turned over a new leaf in the last few years. Last season, the team advanced all the way to the Championship, where they lost to the UConn Huskies, and they led almost the entire way today against No. 13 High Point.
Painter and his team will certainly be feeling the pressure, but the team has only lost one game all year to a team outside of Quad 1, and McNeese State is in Quad 2. This basically means that the Boilermakers are not a team that plays down to their competition, which is an often overlooked component of March Madness.
With a dynamic duo of Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn, this Purdue team has a chance to make a deep run. But first, they'll need to continue silencing their doubters as they take on No. 12 McNeese State on Saturday.