Matt Painter has guided Purdue to two of the past three Big Ten regular-season championships, made 10 straight NCAA Tournaments, including six of the past eight Sweet 16s, and, any way you slice it, generally elevated his program to top-tier status in the sport after recently producing a back-to-back Wooden Award winner (Zach Edey) and participating in the title game of the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
Is the best for Painter’s Boilermakers on tap?
It’s impossible to answer that question in August with any degree of certainty — but there are plenty of reasons to believe it’s possible, even with the bar set so high, mostly because each of the top four scorers from last season’s team that finished 15th at EvanMiya.com is back. One of them is All-American guard Braden Smith, the reigning Big Ten Player of the Year. Another one of them is All-American forward Trey Kaufman-Renn, the Boilermakers’ leading returning scorer. (Yes, Purdue has All-Americans in both the backcourt and frontcourt.) Combine that excellent core with fellow veterans Fletcher Loyer and C.J Cox, plus newcomers Oscar Cluff and Omer Mayer, and the Boilermaker should be considered the favorites in the Big Ten and among the realistic candidates to cut nets in Indianapolis on the first Monday night in April.
And wouldn’t that be something?
If things break a certain way, come next April, we could watch Painter, a 54-year-old future Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame coach from Indiana, lead his alma mater to a national championship inside a stadium located within a 70-minute drive of both where he attended high school and college. Also worth noting: three of Purdue’s starters — Smith, Loyer and Kaufman-Renn — are also Indiana natives, which could really make for a special scene inside Lucas Oil Stadium.
With college basketball’s player movement all but done this offseason, it’s time to start breaking down the rosters of the sport’s top programs. For this installment, we’re taking a look at Purdue and trying to decipher what how things could look like when the season begins in November.
The betting favorite to win it all in 2025-2026? The Purdue Boilermakers. Coach Matt Painter sits down with Gary Parrish to discuss how the offseason has gone, what makes Braden Smith so special, and more!
Projected starting lineup
1. Braden Smith | 6-0 | 170 | Sr.
Smith was a consensus First Team All-American last season after averaging 15.8 points, 8.7 assists and 4.5 rebounds while shooting 42.8% from the field and 38.1% from 3-point range. He was the Big Ten Player of the Year — and also won the Bob Cousy Award, given annually to the sport’s top point guard. Smith will enter his senior year with 758 assists in his career, which places him 318 behind former Duke great Bobby Hurley, the all-time leader at the Division I level. If Smith records assists at the rate at which he recorded them last season, he could break Hurley’s record during the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
2. Omer Mayer | 6-4 | 215 | Fr.
Mayer is the wild card on the roster after averaging 20.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 2.0 steals at the FBA U19 World Cup in Switzerland, which led to him getting an invitation to this past weekend’s Chris Paul Elite Guard Camp in Las Vegas. Simply put, we already know Purdue will have two of the sport’s top seniors in Smith and Kaufman-Renn. If the Boilermakers also have one of the sport’s top freshmen in Mayer, they could spend a lot of this season atop the national rankings.
3. Fletcher Loyer | 6-5 | 180 | Sr.
Loyer has started all 110 games the Boilermakers have played since he enrolled at Purdue, making him one of the most reliable and experienced players in the country. He averaged 13.8 points and 2.1 rebounds last season while shooting 45.6% from the field and 44.4% from 3-point range. Each of those numbers represented a career-high. Lower is also a 83.6% free throw shooter for his career.
4. Trey Kaufman-Renn | 6-9 | 230 | Sr.
After spending two years in a limited role because of the presence of Edey, Kaufman-Renn broke through last season and secured CBS Sports Third Team All-America honors by averaging 20.1 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.2 assists per contest while shooting 59.5% from the field. Those numbers made Kaufman-Renn the only Division I player last season, and just the third in Big Ten history, to average at least 20 points, six rebounds and two assists while shooting at least 59% from the field.
5. Oscar Cluff | 6-11 | 260 | Sr.
Cluff is the top incoming transfer at Purdue after averaging 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds in 30 games last season at South Dakota State. Will that production translate to the Big Ten? It’s a reasonable question to ask. Either way, between Kaufman-Renn and Cluff, the Boilermakers should start two bigs who combined to average 37.7 points and 18.8 rebounds at the Division I level last season. That’s inarguably strong.
Off the bench
To be clear, the projected starting lineup above is nothing more than that — a projection. It seems clear that Smith, Loyer and Kaufman-Renn will start — but the other backcourt spot and the other frontcourt spot are possibly up for grabs even if I’m leaning toward Mayer and Cluff eventually settling into those roles. Either way, here’s the point: regardless of how Painter and his staff decide to start, Purdue will have nice players in reserve roles, which should only bolster its national-championship aspirations.
Here’s a look at Purdue’s (presumed) top reserves:
C.J. Cox| 6-3 | 200 | Soph.
Cox started 23 times last season and averaged 6.0 points and 2.8 rebounds while shooting 39.8% from 3-point range. It was a really nice freshman year for a player who had zero high-major offers before committing to Purdue in October 2004. Whether Cox starts again or comes off of the bench, he’ll be one of the most important players for what should be one of college basketball’s best teams.
Daniel Jacobsen | 7-4 | 230 | Soph.
Jacobsen only appeared in two games last season before a broken leg sidelined him for the rest of the season. He’s now completely healthy and 25 pounds heavier after helping USA Basketball win a gold medal at the FIBA U19 World Cup in Switzerland. Jacobsen averaged 6.6 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks while shooting 60.6% from the field in that event.
Gicarri Harris | 6-3 | 200 | Soph.
Harris appeared in 36 games last season, started four times and averaged 3.8 points and 1.9 rebounds in 15.0 minutes per contest. He took 27 free throws on the season and made 25 of them. No other freshman in the country who took that many made that high of a percentage (92.6).
Liam Murphy | 6-7 | 225 | Sr.
Murphy averaged 13.0 points and 3.3 rebounds at North Florida last season after playing the previous two years at Columbia. He shot 42.3% from 3-point range on 7.7 attempts per contest, which suggests the New York native will be capable of providing floor-spacing off of the bench.
Filling out the roster
Purdue’s remaining roster features seven players, only one of whom (Raleigh Burgess) appeared in more than six games for the Boilermakers last season. Here are those names:
Market watch
Purdue’s odds to win 2026 NCAA Tournament (via Fanduel): +900
Purdue is now the favorite in the betting markets to win the 2026 NCAA Tournament in a development that seems at least partly connected to the emergence of Mayer, who was terrific this summer on an international stage. He could be the elite freshman/legitimate NBA prospect teams often need to win six games in the NCAA Tournament. And, if I’m being honest, the way Mayer performed this summer has me wondering whether I should reconsider the Top 25 And 1 — because No. 4 for the Boilermakers might be too low if Mayer is really as good as quickly as he appears capable of being.
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