Second-seeded Purdue may not necessarily be familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of No. 7 seed Miami ahead of the teams’ meeting in West Region second-round play on Sunday in St. Louis.
But the Boilermakers certainly know what to expect from the Hurricanes’ top two scorers, having played them last season when they were in the Big Ten.
Malik Reneau, a 6-foot-9 senior who averaged 13.1 points and grabbed 5.6 rebounds in his third season at Indiana, transferred home to Miami and has enjoyed his best season. Reneau, who scored a game-high 24 points Friday night in the Hurricanes’ 80-66 elimination of Missouri, averages 19.0 points and 6.6 rebounds.
Then there’s 6-2 combo guard Tre Donaldson, who tallied 11.3 points per game a season ago for Michigan. This season, Donaldson supplies career-high averages in points (16.5) and assists (5.8) for the Canes. He comes off a 22-point effort Friday night, including multiple clutch 3-pointers down the stretch.
“It definitely helps,” said Purdue point guard Braden Smith of their familiarity with Reneau and Donaldson. “You gotta be ready to just bounce back quickly.”
Both teams are dealing with a quick turnaround after winning first-round games Friday night. It will be a bit quicker for Miami, which got off the floor at 11:28 p.m. local time after quieting a large Tigers crowd in Enterprise Center.
The Hurricanes (26-8) have defied expectations all season, though. First-year coach Jai Lucas inherited a bare cupboard, but he recruited a blend of veterans and freshmen that have played with poise and set a school record for wins by a new coach.
Friday night might have been its most impressive exhibition of poise. Missouri led 54-52 with less than eight minutes left when Lucas called a timeout. One 11-0 run later – highlighted by five straight points from Reneau and four from freshman Shelton Henderson — Miami was ahead for good.
“Just stay the course and continue to just keep pushing and pushing,” Donaldson said. “Don’t change nothing. Attack it the same way we have been all year.”
While the Hurricanes might be playing with house money, the Boilermakers (28-8) have been playing with high expectations for years. The 2024 national finalists were picked No. 1 in multiple preseason national polls. After a late-season lull knocked them down to the No. 7 seed in the Big Ten tournament, they’ve found that championship form.
Purdue won four games in four days to win the conference tourney and carried that standard of play into Friday night’s 104-71 rout of Queens in the first round. Smith scored 26 points and dished out eight assists to break Bobby Hurley’s 33-year old NCAA mark for most assists in a career. Smith goes into Sunday’s game with 1,083 helpers in four seasons.
Boilermakers coach Matt Painter said Friday’s performance was another display of Smith’s judgment in terms of hunting his shot versus feeding his teammates.
“We let his instincts take over and if they’re going to play deeper, he has to look for his pullup,” Painter said. “It just depends on what we’re running, the angles we’re running … he took the shots that were there.”
The winner advances to a Thursday night semifinal against either third-seeded Gonzaga or 11th-seeded Texas.
–Bucky Dent, Field Level Media
