St. Louis – Fletcher Loyer was the model of efficiency on Sunday.
The Purdue guard scored a game-high 24 points on just seven shot attempts, lifting the second-seeded Boilermakers to a 79-69 win over seventh-seeded Miami in the second round of the NCAA Tournament’s West Region.
Loyer made 6 of 7 shots from the field, including all four of his 3-point tries, and canned eight free throws without a miss as Purdue (29-8) earned a spot in the regional semifinals Thursday against 11th-seeded Texas (21-14).
Loyer, formerly of Clarkston, Mich., is the son of John Loyer, who was a Detroit Pistons assistant coach from 2011-14.
NCAA TOURNAMENT SCOREBOARD
Trey Kaufman-Renn added 19 points and nine rebounds for the Boilermakers, who hit 25 of 47 shots from the field and connected on 21 of 22 at the foul line. C.J. Cox contributed 11 points before leaving early in the second half with an apparent knee injury and not returning.
Purdue won without a typical Braden Smith game. The senior point guard, who became the NCAA’s career assist leader in Friday’s opening-round game, made only 3 of 11 shots and scored 12 points while committing a career-high-tying eight turnovers. Smith did dish out eight assists.
Freshman Shelton Henderson paced the Hurricanes (26-9) with 18 points, eight rebounds and four assists. Malik Reneau added 16 points and Tre Donaldson scored 13 but made only 4 of 12 attempts. Tru Washington came off the bench to tally 11 points.
Miami led 40-38 at halftime, but the Boilermakers ramped up their defense in the second half. The Hurricanes canned just 11 of 30 tries after halftime and committed seven of their 12 turnovers.
Kaufman-Renn knocked down a mid-range jumper at the 3:50 mark of the second half to put Purdue ahead 72-61. Miami made a late push and cut the margin to 73-69 on a putback by Washington with 57.7 seconds remaining.
However, Smith helped seal the outcome at the foul line by hitting four straight foul shots in the last minute.
The Boilermakers won despite being outrebounded 33-25. The Hurricanes grabbed 14 offensive rebounds, but they converted those into only 13 points.
More West Region
➤Arizona 78, Utah State 66: Jaden Bradley scored 12 of his 18 points in the second half as the catalyst for the Wildcats in holding off a wild comeback from the Aggies in second-round play in San Diego.
Arizona (34-2) advances to its third consecutive Sweet 16 and fourth in five years, and will meet No. 4 seed Arkansas on Thursday in San Jose, Calif. Motiejus Krivas finished with 11 points and 14 rebounds, nine of which came on the offensive glass. Koa Peat added another 10 rebounds to go with 14 points, helping the Wildcats to a pivotal 54-26 rebounding advantage. Brayden Burries scored 16 points.
Garry Clark’s 13 points led Utah State (29-7), MJ Collins Jr. finished with 12, Drake Allen 11 and Mason Falslev had eight.
South Region
➤Iowa 73, Florida 72: Alvaro Folgueiras drained a wide-open 3-pointer from the right corner with 4.5 seconds left to give Iowa a dramatic victory over defending national champion Florida at Tampa, Fla.
The top-seeded Gators’ Xaivian Lee (17 points) was unable to get a shot off in the final seconds after driving down the court, failing to complete an attempted pass to Thomas Haugh in front of the basket. That allowed first-year Iowa coach Ben McCollum to take the ninth-seeded Hawkeyes to the program’s first Sweet 16 since 1999, setting up an intra-Big Ten matchup Thursday in Houston vs. No. 4 seed Nebraska.
Tavian Banks had 20 points and six rebounds, and Folgueiras added 14 points for the Hawkeyes (23-12). Sharpshooter Bennett Stirtz added 13 points despite going 0-for-9 from 3-point range and Cooper Koch had 12 on four 3-pointers.
Alex Condon recorded 21 points and seven assists and Haugh added 19 points for Florida (27-8), which was even with Iowa in rebounds at 27 apiece despite leading the nation in rebounds per game.
Midwest Region
➤Alabama 90, Texas Tech 65: Latrell Wrightsell scored 24 points and the Crimson Tide unleashed a relentless 3-point attack in blowing out the Red Raiders in Tampa, Fla.
Houston Mallette scored all 15 of his points on 3s, Amari Allen had 12 points despite missing his four 3-point attempts and Aiden Sherrell had 10 points. Labaron Philon Jr. contributed nine points and a career-high 12 assists. Alabama (25-9) is going to the Sweet 16 for the fourth year in a row, meeting top-seeded Michigan on Friday night in the Midwest Region at Chicago.
LeJuan Watts’ 16 points and seven rebounds led Texas Tech (23-11), while Donovan Atwell provided 12 points and Leon Horner had 10. The Red Raiders lost four of their final five games, with a once-promising season veering off track after the loss of star JT Toppin to a season-ending injury.
➤Tennessee 79, Virginia 72: If the lack of an upset on Friday in Philadelphia’s NCAA Tournament games left fans disappointed, the consolation prize was a high-level contest to start Sunday’s doubleheader.
No. 6 seed Tennessee and No. 3 Virginia treated a full and loud arena to a terrific game that came right down to the end, with the Volunteers prevailing 79-72.
Virginia fans dominated the crowd, coming by the thousands from Charlottesville and no doubt the big alumni base in the D.C. area. At times there looked to be enough — or at least sounded like it — to wonder where Connecticut’s horde would fit in for the second game of the doubleheader.
They were treated to a fast and ferocious first half, with the shot clock only rarely in danger. Virginia led 20-16 just over eight minutes in, then Tennessee reeled off a 12-0 run punctuated by a Felix Okpara slam. The Volunteers stayed ahead for the rest of the period, and it was 36-31 at halftime.
Tennessee kept its lead well into the second half, and both teams kept the pace fast even as they turned up their defensive intensity. Ja’Kobi Gillespie, the Vols’ first-round star against Miami of Ohio, pushed his team’s lead to 60-51 just past the midway point with a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired.
➤Iowa State 82, Kentucky 63: Short-handed Iowa State was without versatile star forward Joshua Jefferson for its second-round matchup with Kentucky on Sunday.
But the Cyclones had their feral defense, and that was more than enough to tame the Wildcats, who coughed up 20 turnovers that led to 25 points in St. Louis.
With Jefferson out due to an ankle injury suffered during Friday’s 108-74 blowout over Tennessee State, the second-seeded Cyclones (29-7) relied on veteran point guard Tamin Lipsey. He scored 17 of his game-high 26 points after halftime and added 10 assists, one more than Kentucky had as a team.
Milan Momcilovic added 20 points, while Nate Heise chipped in 12 and freshman Killyan Toure netted 10 points. Iowa State canned 19 of 30 field-goal attempts in the second half, including 13 of 18 on 2-pointers.
But the main factor was defense. The Cyclones trailed 20-9 in less than nine minutes as seventh-seeded Kentucky (22-14) started 8 of 12 from the field and 4 of 6 from deep.
Once Iowa State started extending its defense and applied intense pressure on ballhandlers, the Wildcats came to a grinding halt. They committed 12 turnovers in the first half and were unable to turn the tide during their final 20 minutes of the season.
Denzel Aberdeen scored 20 points for Kentucky and Otega Oweh added 18 and eight rebounds, but it wasn’t quite enough. The Wildcats shot decently from the field, making 46.7%, but only attempted 45 shots because of all the turnovers.
East Region
➤St. John’s 67, Kansas 65: The drought is over. For the first time in 27 years, St. John’s is headed to the Sweet 16.
Dylan Darling delivered a dramatic, buzzer-beating lay-up to give fifth-seeded St. John’s a 67-65 win over fourth-seeded Kansas in San Diego on Sunday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Kansas had rallied back from a 14-point second-half deficit, with a pair of Darryn Peterson free throws tying the score with 14 seconds left.
That set up Darling’s instant-classic moment.
The red-hot Red Storm will next face Duke, the top overall seed in this year’s tournament, on Friday in Washington, D.C.
Facing his former team, St. John’s star Zuby Ejiofor scored 18 points with nine rebounds. Bryce Hopkins added 18 points and shot 6 of 9 on 3-pointers.
The Kansas freshman phenom Peterson — a strong contender to be the No. 1 pick in this year’s NBA draft – led all scorers with 21.
St. John’s forced 16 turnovers and shot 11 of 35 on 3-pointers.
It was St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino’s first career win over Kansas’ Bill Self in the Hall of Famers’ second-ever meeting.
➤UConn 73, UCLA 57: Alex Karaban scored a career-high 27 points, freshman Braylon Mullins added 17 and the Huskies took down the Bruins to return to the Sweet 16.
UConn (31-5) will face No. 3 Michigan State in the East Region semifinals. The program is shooting for a third national title to cap Karaban’s four-year career, after eventual champion Florida eliminated the Huskies in the second round of the NCAA Tournament last year. Tarris Reed Jr. had 10 points and 13 boards but shot just 3 of 8 from the field. Jayden Ross had 11 points.
Xavier Booker had 12 points on 4-of-4 shooting in the first half to fuel UCLA (24-12), but he was held in check after that and finished with 13. Eric Dailey Jr. put up 12, Donovan Dent added 11 with nine assists and Skyy Clark also scored 11.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: NCAA Tournament roundup: Fletcher Loyer, Purdue outlast Miami to make Sweet 16
Reporting by Detroit News staff and wires, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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