Purdue Battles Houston in Indiana: Neutral Site Dynamics

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00:00Game number four tonight, the last game on the card, 10-09 Eastern to be played in Indianapolis.

00:06It's Purdue, it's Houston. Purdue is from Indiana. The game is in Indiana. Home court advantage

00:12towards the Purdue Boilermakers, even though it's a quote-unquote neutral site. Houston,

00:16no shame in their game. Heavy favorites in this one. Opened up at 7.5 at the FanBull Sportsbook,

00:21sits at 8.5 right now live. The total of this game, it is low. Why? Because Houston plays

00:26electric defense. 131.5 for the opening number, still sits at 131.5. Your initial thoughts on

00:33this game, we got those, Joe Ranieri. Now more of a handicap style. What are we looking forward

00:37to in this game from you? Well, listen, we're talking about advantage Purdue from the location

00:45standpoint. 60 miles from West Lafayette is where this game is going to be played. So

00:51it is absolutely advantage Purdue there. And I told you the numbers earlier,

00:57Donnie. Teams playing in their home state since 1991 in the tournament, 143-103-2 against the

01:06number. It has been very profitable to back those teams playing in their home state in this spot.

01:12However, Houston does have just about every statistical advantage, I think, in this game

01:19here. We know the biggest weakness for Purdue is they don't play any defense and they can't

01:24stop anybody in the paint. Okay. How in the world are you going to stop Houston inside here in any

01:32way, shape, or form? They don't rebound all that much. And although Trey Kauffman-Wren had

01:37a tremendous game last time out, you know, look at who they had to beat versus who Houston had

01:44to beat. I mean, that game against Gonzaga was, that was a big test for Houston. Elite offensive

01:53team, Gonzaga, you know what? They still handled their business. Only Gonzaga played a little bit

01:58more defense. Neither of these teams, and I think this is important for folks to remember,

02:03we associate the Houston Cougars at a snail's pace, 359th in pace in the country. But don't

02:13confuse it. The Boilermakers are not running up and down the court. They're not Gonzaga. They're

02:18298th in pace. They are going to make this a half-court game, and it's all going to come

02:24down to whether Brandon Smith here can make enough shots against this defense of Houston to keep it

02:30close. Love the under, agree with the movement to the under, but I'm going to go Houston early

02:38in this one, first half. They've been money all year early in games. I think they come out and

02:43punch Purdue quickly and have a significant lead by the time they go to the break.