Milos Uzan scored 16 points, LJ Cryer added 15 and No. 1 seed Houston was able to rest up for the rest of the NCAA Tournament while romping past No. 16 seed SIU Edwardsville 78-40 on Thursday in the first round of the Midwest Region in Wichita, Kansas.

Ja’Vier Francis added 13 points and eight rebounds for the Big 12 champs, who will carry a 14-game winning streak into a second-round matchup with eighth-seeded Gonzaga or No. 9 seed Georgia. That game ended too late for this edition.

Houston (31-4) has won 26 of its last 27 overall.

Ray’Sean Taylor had 10 points for SIUE (22-12), which was just 2 of 24 from the 3-point arc in its first NCAA appearance.

The Cougars probably knew they were in for a tough afternoon against a bigger, more athletic bunch of Cougars in the first few minutes, when Houston scored on nine straight offensive possessions. At the other end, SIUE struggled just to get shots off — at one point, guard Brian Taylor II was trapped so quickly that he looked perplexed.

The whole affair may have been summed up by the last 3 seconds of the first half: SIUE forward Myles Thompson was trapped near midcourt, turned the ball over, and Cryer promptly drilled a 3 from the wing to give Houston a 52-24 lead.

Purdue 75, High Point 63: Trey Kaufman-Renn had 21 points and eight rebounds, and the fourth-seeded Boilermakers won in Providence, Rhode Island.

Big Ten player of the year Braden Smith added 20 points and six assists as Purdue (23-11) avoided a first-round exit after reaching the championship game last season.

D’Maurian Williams had 12 points for No. 13 seed High Point (29-6), which had won 14 straight. Trae Benham added 11 points.

High Point cut a 10-point halftime deficit to 59-56 on a dunk by Juslin Bodo Bodo with 7:47 left. But the Panthers were shut out over the next three-plus minutes as Purdue built its lead back up to double digits.

East Region

Wisconsin 85, Montana St. 66: The Badgers grinded their way back into the March Madness win column, getting 19 points from John Blackwell and double-digit scoring from four others on the way to the victory in Denver.

No. 3 seed Wisconsin won in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2022. Last year, the Badgers were a first-round upset victim to James Madison. They missed the tournament in 2023.

Next, coach Greg Gard’s team will try to make the Sweet 16 for the first time in eight years.

Blackwell also had five rebounds and three assists for the Badgers (27-9), but it was backup forward Carter Gilmore’s burst early in the second half that helped them grab breathing room in what had been a tight, single-digit contest to that point.

After the Grizzlies cut their deficit to 51-47 with a poke-away steal, then an easy layup by Money Williams, Gilmore came back with a quick 3 that he punctuated by putting a finger over his mouth and taunting the Montana crowd to “shhhh.”

Gilmore drew a charge on Montana’s next possession, then altered Te’Jon Sawyer’s shot on the next, part of an 8-0 run that gave Wisconsin its biggest lead of the game to that point — one that would expand to 21 points.

Sawyer and Kai Johnson led the Grizzlies (25-10) with 15 points each.

The other Wisconsin double-digit scorers: Steven Crowl (18), John Tonje (15), Xavier Amos (11) and Nolan Winter (10). Tonje, the second-team All-American who played his first four years of college at Colorado State, made all nine of his free throws.