Sweet 16 Preview: Purdue vs Texas Tech

SteemSports Presenter: @scottybuckets
SteemSports Editor: @theprophet0
The #2Purdue Boilermakers and the #3 Texas Tech Red Raiders will battle it out tonight in the Sweet 16 of the 2018 NCAA Tournament. The game tips off at 8:57pm Central Standard Time and can be seen on National Television on TBS. It will take place at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. Purdue is favored by 2 points and the over/under is 138 points.

Purdue is going to have to play again without their starting center, Isaac Haas, who has a fractured elbow. He missed their exciting 76-73 win over the Butler Bulldogs on Sunday and may not be cleared to play at all this season. He has tried to get cleared but the NCAA is yet to do so. Vince Edwards was the leading scorer against Butler with 20 points. He also played great defense and the senior leader made big plays at the end of the game. Sophomore point guard Carsen Edwards had an uncharacteristically bad game and only mad 4-17 from the field, but don’t expect that to happen again tonight.

Texas Tech is coming off of a nice 69-66 win over the Florida Gators on Saturday. Guard Keenan Evans had 22 points in the win including making 3-4 from the 3 point line. Zhaire Smith had one of his best games of the year and had 9 rebounds and 7 assists and only 1 turnover. The Red Raiders will need to shoot MUCH better than the 50% they shot from the free throw line though. If they do that again, it will be lights out on their season.

Purdue is good enough to end this year as a National Champion. Even with Haas being hurt, they have a deep bench and the two Edwards boys are fantastic. Texas Tech will need to get hot from deep tonight if they want to be in this game at the end.

Thank you for following @steemsports and you can find me @scottybuckets