ROSEMONT, In poor health. — Purdue stars Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn walked into the Donald E. Stephens Conference Middle collectively Thursday, each in darkish fits with white shirts, able to deal with what needs to be their ultimate Huge Ten Media Day upfront of what’s anticipated to be their final season of school basketball.
They appeared sharp.
They sounded assured.
Within the earlier three seasons, they’ve already helped the Boilermakers win two outright Huge Ten regular-season titles and one Huge Ten Event championship whereas making three straight appearances within the NCAA Event, one in every of which resulted in a visit to the 2024 nationwide title recreation. Both may have left Purdue after final season and nonetheless completed their faculty careers with extra wins and accolades than most.
However neither did.
As a result of they don’t seem to be happy.
Actually, when requested about his expectations for the upcoming season, Kaufman-Renn, an apparent All-American candidate in Purdue’s frontcourt, did not shrink back from the concept that he needs this to be his finest season but. And on condition that he and Smith, the latter of whom is an apparent nationwide participant of the 12 months candidate in Purdue’s backcourt, have already received convention championships and performed within the title recreation of the NCAA Event, there’s actually just one approach to make this their finest season as Boilermakers, and that is by successful the NCAA Event in April for what could be the primary time in program historical past.
NCAA rule giving gamers a fifth 12 months of eligibility is probably not accredited in time to assist present seniors
Isaac Trotter
And, sure, that is positively the purpose.
“I keep in mind [former Boilermaker] Sasha [Stefanovic] telling me after I redshirted my first 12 months that it’s important to make your senior 12 months the perfect 12 months,” Kaufman-Renn mentioned. “What we having going for us this 12 months, all the good items, all the good personalities, I am excited to do it.”
And lots of people consider they may.
As we sit right here in early October, now fewer than 4 weeks away from the beginning of the common season, Purdue (+900 in accordance with newest odds at FanDuel) is the favourite within the betting markets to win the 2026 NCAA Event. Furthermore, when my colleague Matt Norlander and I lately requested greater than 100 faculty coaches to inform us which group they consider would be the sport’s finest this season, the main vote-getter was Purdue.
“The factor that jumps out is, I feel, we’ve got among the best, or the finest, frontcourts [and], I feel, we’ve got among the best, or the perfect, backcourts,” mentioned Purdue coach Matt Painter. “We have now good guys. We have now rivals. We have now that company DNA that the Spurs had [under former coach Gregg Popovich]. It’s extremely laborious to get that in faculty basketball right now — however we’ve got it.”
Undeniably, they do — plus among the best and most-respected coaches within the sport, as evidenced by the outcomes of this 12 months’s Candid Coaches sequence. Once more, we polled greater than 100 faculty coaches who advised us that they consider Painter is faculty basketball’s finest X’s and O’s coach and the individual they’d most like their son to spend 4 years with if their son had been a Division I basketball participant.
It is excessive reward, earned.
And among the many causes there’s an actual probability the Huge Ten’s most-famous streak — zero nationwide championships for any convention members since Michigan State received the 2000 NCAA Event — may finish this season. To be clear, there are different professional title-contenders all through the league with Michigan, UCLA and Illinois every becoming a member of the Boilermakers within the prime 9 of BartTorvik.com’s preseason rankings. However the Huge Ten group with the perfect mixture of expertise, expertise, continuity and training is the one which performs dwelling video games inside Mackey Enviornment, the place a banner that reads “2026 NCAA Event Champions” will grasp sometime if Painter, Smith, Kaufman-Renn and all people else in Purdue’s program are literally in a position to accomplish what they don’t seem to be even making an attempt to cover they so badly wish to get finished.
“That is the explanation why I got here again — as a result of I needed to be on [this] group,” mentioned Smith, the Huge Ten Preseason Participant of the Yr. “We have got an important group to [go and] accomplish one thing like that.”