2025 men's NCAA Tournament Round of 32 preview (Saturday)
The bright orange orb determines all fates
Just like last year! First game’s free, remaining seven are paywalled. Let’s have a fun day. Some tweaks this year: one video for each game, new stats, new things to look for, deeper previews.
(4) Purdue (-5.5) vs. (12) McNeese, 12:10 PM ET, CBS
I actually find it somewhat hard to take that much from either’s first game because their Round of 32 opponent is so wholly different. Purdue shredded an atrocious P&R defense to the tune of 1.25 PPP (I projected 1.23 in the preview, just humblebragging), while McNeese rode an all-time shooting stinker from Clemson for ~28 minutes and survived for 12. Look at the offensive differences in style from Purdue and Clemson here and you’ll see McNeese can’t really roll back the exact same gameplan twice:
There are some similarities but I wouldn’t call it 1:1. Purdue is much happier to attack through a high P&R and/or a wide variety of post-ups through TKR, which may or may not be an issue here for McNeese. Clemson had quality post options but I feel confident in saying TKR’s quite a bit better than either the Chef or Lakhin. BUT: the P&R is going to be unusual sledding for Purdue. No one in the Big Ten offers the switchability/hedging coverage that McNeese provides, and you actually have to go back to non-con to find three opponents that switch on more than 25% of their P&R coverages: Northern Kentucky, Yale, and Ole Miss.
Potential flaw here for our Cowboys: Purdue posted 1.16, 1.27, and 1.28 PPP on 61% 2PT/45% 3PT against these three. The difference in these three games versus all others was a near-total rejection of traditional rim attacks from the perimeter, but extremely high usage of the roller in Purdue’s P&R sets.
When McNeese has the ball it’s inherently less interesting to me; I love ‘em, but guys like Sincere Parker and Javohn Garcia take an alarming amount of low-quality shots. Purdue’s defense is far from some sort of artwork, but against high-ISO/no-post offenses in the B1G - think Minnesota, Northwestern, tOSU, Rutgers - Purdue’s D actually held up okay: 1 PPP allowed, 50% 2PT/33% 3PT splits, just 26% of opponent shots at the rim. I think there’s actually an unexpected path here for Purdue to win the math battle.
I don’t think this matchup is nearly as bad for McNeese as I’m suggesting; they will have a very live chance here, and I think it’s going to take Purdue a bit to get used to a style of P&R coverage they basically haven’t seen since November. But I just don’t love that McNeese lost to the top three shooting offenses they’ve drawn and four of the top five.
THING TO WATCH FOR: I noted this above, but we really haven’t seen Purdue face a heavy-switch (or even combo switch/hedge) defense in basically four months. The first few P&R possessions they run will be telling. I’m expecting fewer true post-ups because of the doubles McNeese applies, but because of the perimeter aggression and potential matchup exploits you’ll see here, sets like these that get TKR running downhill out of the P&R could be the way to get McNeese out of sorts.
THING TO CTRL+F THE BOXSCORE FOR: McNeese’s free throw count. Purdue has a shorter-than-average bench so they don’t foul often, but that might play in their favor. In games where opponents generate 17 or fewer free throw attempts, Purdue is 17-2 this year. McNeese averages 20.4 a game; five of their six losses featured them getting off 20 or fewer FTAs.
THREE MOST STATISTICALLY SIMILAR GAMES (2002-pres.): 2019 (12) Murray State over (5) Marquette; 2007 (5) Tennessee over (12) Long Beach State; 2003 (6) Missouri over (11) Southern Illinois
PREDICTION: Purdue 75, McNeese 67. For what it’s worth, in terms of the games with plausible ‘upsets’ this and Texas Tech are the ones most similar to upsets in previous seasons.