Purdue's Smith: 'I could have stayed' guarding Houston's inbounds play

Braden Smith explained his perspective on Purdue's final defensive possession against Houston that saw the Boilermakers give up an open layup, leading to their loss in the Sweet 16.

"I mean we knew that they were going to come off the back screen and (L.J.) Cryer was going to get that shot in the corner," Smith said, according to Dustin Schutte of Sports Illustrated. "We've seen it in film and stuff. I was just trying to take that away. As we did that, C.J. (Cox) or whoever it was, we switch it and he takes it and goes back to the ball. ... I don't know, I could have stayed. There's a lot of different things that could have went into it. I just didn't want Cryer coming off to hit that shot."

With 2.8 seconds left and the teams tied, Smith stopped guarding Houston's inbounding player, Milos Uzan, instead deciding to run to the corner to defend Cougars guard Cryer. Uzan passed the ball to forward Joseph Tugler, who delivered a bounce pass back to him - leading to Uzan's game-winning layup.

Houston led by as much as 10 points in the second half, but Purdue tied the contest after Camden Heide made a 3-pointer with 35 seconds remaining.

"You want to win every single game that we play and going down 10, a lot of teams give up like, 'Oh, that's game,'" Smith said. "I thought we fought really hard, and we dug down deep defensively to get those stops to come back, and we did everything we could, and we just had a little miscommunication at the end, and they converted on it, so props to them."

Smith was held to seven points on 2-of-7 shooting, but dished out 15 assists. Fletcher Loyer led Purdue in scoring with 16 points, while Trey Kaufman-Renn added 14.

The Boilermakers have reached the Sweet 16 in three of the past five seasons. They lost to UConn in the national championship last campaign.

Houston will face No. 2 Tennessee in the Elite Eight on Sunday.