Top seed Houston sinks Purdue with last-second layup
Mar 28, 2025; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Purdue Boilermakers guard Fletcher Loyer (2) reacts against the Houston Cougars in the first half during a Midwest Regional semifinal of the 2025 NCAA tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Goddin-Imagn Images INDIANAPOLIS — At a quarter ’til 1 a.m. local time, Houston guard Milos Uzan dropped in a game-winning layup and the Cougars grabbed the final Elite Eight spot in a 62-60 thriller over Purdue in the late-night Midwest Region semifinal that began Friday.
With the game tied at 60, top-seeded Houston began its final possession with 2.8 seconds left and the ball out of bounds to the right of the basket it was attacking. Uzan inbounded the ball to Joseph Tugler in the lane and stepped in to catch a pass from Tugler and lay it in with the clock reading 0.9.
Purdue’s subsequent inbounds pass was caught by Braden Smith moving from left to right on the Boilermakers’ side of halfcourt, but a final heave fell short.
Uzan had 22 points and six assists for the Cougars (33-4), and Emanuel Sharp scored 17 points. Houston will play second-seeded Tennessee on Sunday afternoon in the Midwest Region final, the Cougars’ first appearance in the Elite Eight since 2022.
Houston leading scorer LJ Cryer was 1 of 11 from the field when he popped to the right off of a flare screen to connect on his first 3-pointer of the game for a 60-55 lead with 3:34 to go.
Purdue called its last timeout with 2:32 remaining, and Smith found Trey Kaufman-Renn on a high pick-and-roll for his 14th assist of the game to whittle the deficit to 60-57.
In the last minute, Kaufman-Renn gave Purdue an extra possession with an offensive rebound of Smith’s missed 3-point attempt, and Smith, the Big Ten Player of the Year, made the most of it.
He would get a 15th assist to keep the Boilermakers in position to win and advance to a regional final against Tennessee for the second consecutive season.
Smith dribbled the ball at edge of the March Madness logo as the clock ticked under 40 seconds and attacked across the top of the key, into the lane before finding Heide for another chance from the corner directly across the floor from Purdue’s bench. Hedie atoned with a game-tying trey to even the game at 60-all.
The Boilermakers stacked defensive stops and fought back to make it a two-point game with under four minutes to play after falling behind by double figures.
Heide drained his second 3-pointer of the game, an NBA range shot beyond the top of the key, and Kaufman-Renn put in two free throws with 4:17 left to erase most of Houston’s largest lead of the game.
Uzan found the gas pedal with foul trouble factoring into head coach Matt Painter’s Purdue lineup combinations. He canned his career-best fifth 3-pointer of the night to hike the Houston lead to 53-46, then made the lead 10 with his sixth make in nine attempts.
Smith played all 40 minutes for the third consecutive NCAA Tournament game and had seven points and Kaufman-Renn had 14 points and five rebounds. Purdue’s Fletcher Loyer had 16 points after scoring 12 of the Boilermakers first 16.
Coming off of a 30-point game against Gonzaga in the second round, Cryer was held scoreless in the first half and missed all six of his shots.
Purdue led 31-29 at halftime, having held Houston to 9-of-30 shooting (30 percent).
–Jeff Reynolds, Field Level Media
Sports
Warriors star Steph Curry out at least 5 more games with knee injury
Feb 22, 2026; San Francisco, California, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) cheers from the bench during a game against the Denver Nuggets in the third quarter at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images The Golden State Warriors on Sunday said Stephen Curry will miss the next five games before his right knee injury is re-evaluated.
Curry, who hasn’t played since Jan. 30, is officially out for Monday’s home game against the Los Angeles Clippers with “right patellofemoral pain syndrome,” also called “runner’s knee.” It’s an overuse condition that is marked by pain around the kneecap.
In addition to the Clippers game, Curry will miss the Warriors’ three-game road trip to Houston, Oklahoma City and Utah and a home game against Chicago on March 10. The soonest he could be back is March 13 against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Warriors have said Curry is making progress but is not doing work on the court yet.
Golden State (31-29) is in eighth place in the Western Conference and just 4-6 in the games Curry has missed before and after the All-Star break. The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Warriors 129-101 on Saturday.
–Field Level Media
Sports
Anders Lee's game-winner downs Panthers, caps another Islanders comeback
Mar 1, 2026; Elmont, New York, USA; New York Islanders left wing Anders Lee (27) controls the puck against the Florida Panthers during the first period at UBS Arena. Mandatory Credit: Dennis Schneidler-Imagn Images Anders Lee scored the game-winning goal with 30.9 seconds left Sunday night for the surging New York Islanders, who overcame another two-goal deficit to beat the Florida Panthers, 5-4, in Elmont. N.Y.
Lee got a step on Aaron Ekblad, extended his stick to draw out goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and buried a forehand into the wide open left corner of the net.
Rookie Mathew Schafer scored twice while Carson Soucy and Bo Horvat also scored for the Islanders, who have won five straight games. New York has trailed 2-0 in each of its last three victories.
Goalie David Rittich made 29 saves.
Sam Bennett scored twice while Sandis Vilmanis and Sam Reinhart scored one apiece for the Panthers, who have lost seven of nine (2-7-0). Bobrovsky recorded 21 saves.
Vilmanis opened the scoring 3:44 after the opening faceoff, when he gloved a pass from A.J. Greer and backhanded a shot that trickled under Rittich’s legs.
Bennett doubled the lead by scoring six seconds into a power play with 5:06 left, when his shot from the left faceoff circle sailed past Rittich’s glove.
The Islanders began their latest comeback in unusual fashion with 1:59 remaining, when Schaefer’s shot from the right faceoff circle bounced before the crease, caromed over Bobrovsky’s head and glanced off the top post before bouncing off his back and into the net.
Soucy tied the score with a 4-on-4 goal 7:28 into the second. The defenseman took a drop pass from Simon Holmstrom, who was draped by the Panthers’ Gustav Forsling, and sent a shot under Bobrovsky’s glove.
Bennett gave the Panthers the lead again with 7:56 remaining, when his backhander from the middle of the right faceoff circle went under Rittich’s stick arm.
Horvat tied the score with 2:46 left with an angled shot from near the goal line that landed beneath Bobrovsky’s stick.
Schaefer gave the Islanders their first lead by scoring from the slot with 9:31 left in the third. This gave Schaefer 20 on the year at just 18 years old, making him the youngest defenseman to ever record 20 goals in a season and the youngest since Dion Phaneuf (20 years old) did it for the Calgary Flames in 2005-06.
With Bobrovsky pulled for an extra attacker, Reinhart tied it back up with 1:58 remaining.
–Field Level Media
Entertainment
Anthropics Claude overtakes ChatGPT in App Store
In the battle for AI supremacy, Anthropic’s Claude has just managed to dethrone OpenAI’s ChatGPT in Apple’s App Store, claiming the #1 spot as the most-downloaded free app in the United States, leaving ChatGPT in second and Google’s Gemini a distant fourth.
This sudden surge in the rankings is almost certainly due to public backlash at a recent announcement by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, released on X, that they would work with the Department of Defense (unofficially titled the Department of War) to deploy artificial intelligence through its classified networks.
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This announcement comes on the heels of a public stand by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei against the unrestricted use of AI by governments, in which he specifically highlighted the dangers of both “mass domestic surveillance” and “fully autonomous weapons” powered by AI.
While much of the general public, nervous about the speed and scope of AI’s sudden prominence, viewed this as a principled stand, President Donald Trump saw it as a rebuke of government policy: “The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution,” he wrote in a Truth Social post.
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The Trump administration, acting through Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has since sought to designate Anthropic as a “supply-chain risk to national security,” an unprecedented label for an American company and a move that would make it impossible for them to secure government contracts in the future.
In a cross-company show of support for Anthropic’s stance, more than 700 employees of both Google and OpenAI have signed an open letter, “We Will Not Be Divided,” that concludes forcefully:
“We hope our leaders will put aside their differences and stand together to continue to refuse the Department of War’s current demands for permission to use our models for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight.”
More recently, and as proof that the average person is sensitive to these ethical issues, the general public is weighing in as well, shifting their loyalty from ChatGPT to Claude. To put this shift into perspective, an Anthropic spokesperson told Mashable over email that free users up 60%+ since January, daily signups tripled since November (breaking the all-time record every day this week), and paid subscribers more than doubled this year.” Per the spokesperson, Anthropic ranked #42 before Super Bowl LX and has since ranked in the top 10 in the US app charts.
With the AI revolution still in full swing, the battle for its soul is still being fought, and this latest flare-up proves that the average person still has leverage.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
Topics
Artificial Intelligence
Warriors star Steph Curry out at least 5 more games with knee injury
Anders Lee's game-winner downs Panthers, caps another Islanders comeback
