College Hoops Today: Purdue Snaps Losing Skid

This week, Seth Trimble’s dramatic trey led the Tar Heels to a fantastic comeback win over arch rival Duke; Oklahoma upset 16th ranked BYU – in more ways than just one; and 7’3” Michigan centre Aday Mara made his first two career three pointers. Other college basketball stories we’re tracking include…

Fletcher Loyer Can’t Miss From Downtown

When we last checked in on the Purdue Boilermakers just before Christmas 2023, they were on a mission. And they continued to kick ass going forward, winning a school record 34 games and going all the way to the National final before getting beat fairly handily by UConn.

Last season was a step back for Purdue as it slipped to 24 wins and lost in the regional semifinals, but the school has bounced back so far this season. After an amazing 17-1 start, the Boilermakers hit a skid recently, dropping three straight conference games before rebounding with a convincing win over Maryland then surviving a scare against Oregon on Saturday.

Clearly, Purdue has returned to being a National Championship contender this season, although it faces a tough task on Tuesday night.

As they have been for a couple of seasons, the Boilermakers are led by their dynamic backcourt duo of Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer. And while Smith leads the team in scoring, assists (he’s now eighth all-time in Division I history) and steals, it was Loyer who played the hero on Saturday, scoring 18 points with four boards, three treys, two assists and a steal.

Loyer, whose three pointer with 51 seconds left put Purdue ahead to stay, has really helped get the team back on track with a combined 47 points and 10 three pointers (on 14 tries) over the last two games.

The senior has taken a slight step back this season, sinking fewer field goals despite more touches as he’s been unable to maintain last season’s career-best shooting performance. Having said that, Loyer is canning more shots from downtown, is nailing his freebies at a career-best rate, and also doing better work on the glass.

How welcome is his hot streak from beyond the arc? In the five previous games, Loyer had hit just 4-of-21, but this recent run has shot him to No. 2 all time in Purdue history with 255 behind only Carsen Edwards (281).

While it’s unlikely Loyer sneaks into the 2026 NBA draft, his outside shooting touch will generate pro interest as an UDFA. He has a picture perfect release but is not yet strong enough to be a capable pro defender.

RedHawks Rolling

In 2022-23 – the first year of the Travis Steele era – the Miami (OH) RedHawks lost 20 games. Clearly, there was work to do to get this team back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2006-07.

The following season saw modest improvement to 15 wins, but Miami really turned the corner in 2024-25 with 25 wins. Still, nothing could have prepared us for the RedHawks emergence this season as one of the very few teams in the country that remain undefeated — and that list grew smaller after Arizona lost on Monday — in mid February (currently 24-0, but -700 to lose at some point before the MAC regular season ends as per FanDuel).

Miami is an offensive machine, having scored 90 or more points in a game 11 times this season, the most in school history. It’s a program that relies heavily on its backcourt with its four leading scorers all being guards and even its leading rebounder toils in the backcourt (6’6” junior Eian Elmer). It was Elmer who flashed a bit more scoring than usual on Saturday to lead the team to its latest win.

He potted 18 points, tied his season high with nine boards and added four treys (on four attempts), three steals and a block. Elmer has seen his role increase each season and his shooting has bounced back in 2025-26 after regressing somewhat in 2024-25. His three-point game has also been better this season, as he’s taking and sinking them more often. And while Elmer isn’t getting as many steals, his work on the glass, as we alluded to above, is at career-best levels, and really impressive for a guard.

The Kentucky native has already contributed three win shares this season, just 0.4 behind what he did in all of 2024-25. Elmer isn’t an NBA draft candidate at this point, but that doesn’t mean he’s not an exciting prospect, one that could emerge as a Jaylen Wells type in time.

RotoRob Tune of the Day

American jazz saxophonist Lou Donaldson was active from 1952 until 2017, seven years before his death. In 1958, he released Blues Walk, and from this effort comes “Callin’ All Cats,” a tune that also showed up on the compilation album A Sample of Blue Notes.