No. 2 seed Purdue (30-8) vs. No. 1 seed Arizona (35-2) | NCAA Tournament West Region final | SAP Center, San Jose | 5:49 p.m. | TBS/TruTV | 1290-AM, 107.5-FM
Probable starters
ARIZONA
0 G Jaden Bradley (6-3 senior)
5 G Brayden Burries (6-4 freshman)
18 F Ivan Kharchenkov (6-7 freshman)
10 F Koa Peat (6-8 freshman)
13 C Motiejus Krivas (7-2 junior)
Key reserves
30 F Tobe Awaka (6-8 senior)
3 F Anthony Dell’Orso (6-6 senior)
2 F Dwayne Aristode (6-8 freshman)
PURDUE
3 G Braden Smith (6-0 senior)
0 G CJ Cox (6-3 sophomore)
2 G Fletcher Loyer (6-5 senior)
4 F Trey Kaufman-Renn (6-9 senior)
45 C Oscar Cluff (6-11 senior)
Key reserves
11 F Jack Benter (6-6 sophomore)
24 G Gicarri Harris (6-3 sophomore)
17 G Omer Mayer (6-4 junior)
12 C Daniel Jacobsen (7-4 sophomore)
How they match up
How they got here: Seeded No. 1 after winning the Big 12 regular-season and conference tournament titles, Arizona beat No. 16 LIU 92-58 on March 20 in a first-round NCAA Tournament game, Utah State 78-66 in a second-round game on March 22 and Arkansas 109-88 in the Sweet 16 on Thursday.
Purdue went 13-7 to tie with UCLA for sixth place in the Big Ten but won four games in four days to win the Big Ten Tournament, beating Northwestern, Nebraska, UCLA and Michigan. The Boilermakers received a No. 2 seed in the West Region, beating Queens and Miami (Fla.) last weekend at Portland, Ore., and defeated Texas 79-77 on Thursday on a last-second tip-in by Trey Kaufman-Renn.
Series history: Purdue leads 8-5 and has won the past three games in the series. In the last matchup, eventual Final Four-bound Purdue beat the then-No. 1 ranked Wildcats 91-84 on Dec. 16, 2023, in Indianapolis.
Purdue overview: Picked No. 1 in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll, with the core of their 2024 Final Four team still around, the Boilermakers underachieved relative to expectations during the regular season but have been making up for it so far this month. They lost five home games, including a 23-point pounding by Iowa State on Dec. 5, and lost four of five games to end the Big Ten season.
But since then, the Boilermakers have won seven straight and none by two possessions or fewer until they edged Texas on Thursday night in San Jose. All five Purdue starters scored in double figures, while Kaufman-Renn had 20 points and eight rebounds to lead the Boilermakers.
Senior guards Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer, who led the Boilermakers to their 2023-24 win over Arizona, have led them again this season, while CJ Cox has joined them on what is the 12th-ranking team nationally in 3-point percentage (38.4). Loyer ranks 44th individually with a 3-point percentage of 43.5, while Cox shoots 37.4% from beyond the arc and Smith 36.1.
At 6-9 and 240 pounds, Kaufman-Renn is a force inside the arc. He ranks nationally in both offensive (13.7) and defensive (24.1) rebounding percentage and puts in 60.1% of his two-point shots, though he is only a 64.2% free-throw shooter.
Former Cochise College big man Oscar Cluff has given the Boilermakers a paint presence they lacked when Zach Edey left after their 2024 Final Four appearance. Cluff ranks fifth nationally in offensive rebounding, grabbing 17.7% of Purdue’s missed shots when he’s on the floor, and blocks 4.6% of opponents’ two-pointers when he’s playing. The Boilermakers also have 7-3 center Daniel Jacobsen, who averaged 14 minutes a game on the Tommy Lloyd-coached USA Basketball team that won gold in the U19 FIBA World Cup last summer.
Key Players
PURDUE
Braden Smith
Texas forward Dailyn Swain, left, vies for a loose ball against Purdue guard Braden Smith during the second half in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, Thursday, March 26, 2026, in San Jose, Calif.
A first-team all-American last season and second-team pick this season, Smith broke Bobby Hurley’s 33-year-old assists record of 1,076 when he set up Kaufman-Renn during the first round of the tournament against Queens. Without elite size or athleticism, Smith instead excels with high basketball IQ and technical passing skills, getting the ball in the right place at the right time.
ARIZONA
Tobe Awaka
Arizona forward Tobe Awaka dunks over Arkansas forward Trevon Brazile during the first half in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, Thursday, March 26, 2026, in San Jose, Calif.
The Boilermakes rank 18th in two-point shooting (58.3%) and rebound 36.5% of their missed shots, but Awaka is the nation's leader in offensive rebounding percentage (20.4) and ranks 17th in defensive percentage (26.4). He and 7-footer Motiejus Krivas have a lot to do with how opponents make just 44.2% of their two-pointers, too.
Sidelines
OGs of college hoops
In the here-today-gone-next-season nature of college basketball these days, Purdue is an outlier.
The Boilermakers have three guys — Smith, Loyer and Kaufman-Renn — who have played together for all four years. With the same college.
Imagine that.
The resulting bond may have shown no more so than in the final minutes of their win over Texas on Thursday, when Purdue stayed steady and won on a tip-in by Kaufman-Renn off a layup from Smith.
“Just having so much experience on a team, you hope it's moments like these at the end of the game — it's tied, one-point lead, two-point lead,” Kaufman-Renn said. “When you have so much experience, I think you stay composed, and then you execute. When you have younger teams or teams where there are so many different guys from different schools, you just don't have that connectivity, synergy, whatever you want to call it.
“I'm glad to be part of it. I wouldn't trade it for anything else.”
Purdue ranks fifth nationally in minutes continuity rating, a Kenpom measure of what percentage of a team’s minutes were played by the same players the previous season. They rank 16th in Division I experience (2.50 years), a Kenpom measurement of the average number of full D-1 seasons played by the current roster, weighted by minutes played.
Point guard props
It was hardly a surprise that former Arizona coach Sean Miller, once a standout point guard himself at Pitt, gave props to Smith before his Texas team faced Purdue on Thursday.
“I think Bobby Hurley, when you consider that assist record that he had … whoever that next player is that breaks that record, just think about how difficult that is to get that many assists,” Miller said. “He's the ultimate point guard who makes everybody around him better. He made (former Purdue center) Zach Edey better. He makes Loyer better. He makes players on his team better just because of his incredible understanding of the game, passing and scoring.”
Cali kid
Although he’s from the Southern California city of San Bernardino, with family who made the two-hour drive to San Diego to watch him last weekend, UA freshman Brayden Burries said there’s also a part of the family from the Sierra Nevada foothills that has swung over to watch him in San Jose this weekend.
Burries has obliged. He’s helped the Wildcats go 3-0 in California NCAA Tournament games this season while averaging 19.0 points and 64.2% shooting.
“Good to be back home, good to see my family, some family members that didn't get to come to the games earlier in the year,” Burries said. “Just happy for that.”
Numbers game
0: Arizona wins in five previous Elite Eight games (2003, 2005, 2011, 2014 and 2015).
1: Purdue’s national rank in offensive efficiency, scoring 132.0 points per 100 possessions.
3: Elite Eight appearances by Purdue since 2019.
— Bruce Pascoe
