2025-26 Big Ten basketball season preview: Purdue Boilermakers

With the start of college basketball season in early November, Inside the Hall is taking a team-by-team look at the Big Ten and a player-by-player look at IU basketball’s roster.

Today, our team previews continue with Purdue.

Previously: Penn State, Rutgers, Minnesota, Northwestern, Washington, Nebraska, Maryland, Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon, USC, Michigan State, Ohio State, UCLA, Illinois

Purdue’s 2024-25 season didn’t end with a Big Ten title, but it was another solid season for the league’s most consistent program.

The Boilermakers had the nation’s seventh-best offense, won 24 games and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen.

Expectations remain sky high for Purdue entering the 2025-26 campaign, Matt Painter’s 21st as the head coach in West Lafayette. Most preseason projections have Purdue as the Big Ten favorite, although Bart Torvik’s current rankings have the Boilermakers one spot behind Michigan at No. 4 nationally entering the season.

Through a combination of savvy high school recruiting, player development, player retention and key transfer portal additions, Purdue’s last four seasons have yielded 116 wins, two Big Ten regular-season titles and an appearance in the national championship game.

This season, Purdue is one of the favorites to reach the 2026 Final Four, which will be played in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

The Boilermakers welcome back their top four scorers from last season, including Big Ten player of the year Braden Smith, All-Big Ten first teamer Trey Kaufman-Renn and Fletcher Loyer, one of the nation’s best shooters.

The 6-foot Smith, now a senior, is a maestro with the ball and put up a ridiculous stat line last season as a junior: 15.8 points per game to go along with 8.7 assists, 4.5 rebounds and 2.2 steals. The Westfield product shot 38.1 percent on 3s and had the nation’s second-best assist rate at 44.2 percent. Smith is also an 83.3 percent free-throw shooter and his steal percentage was in the top 100 nationally.

The 6-foot-9 Kaufman-Renn, a Silver Creek product, led the Boilermakers with 20.1 points per game last season and pulled down 6.5 rebounds per game. The redshirt senior shot 59.5 percent from the field, 42.9 percent on 3s and finished seventh last season in KenPom.com’s player of the year standings. While he doesn’t offer much rim protection defensively, Kaufman-Renn is one of the best frontcourt scorers in the country.

The 6-foot-5 Loyer had his most productive season last winter. The senior guard shot 44.4 percent on 3s, 84.8 percent from the free-throw line and had the fifth best offensive rating in the Big Ten. Loyer’s 13.8 points per game were third on the team.

The rest of the guard rotation will need to be sorted out as sophomores C.J. Cox and Gicarri Harris battle newcomers Omer Mayer and Antione West Jr. for minutes.

The 6-foot-3 Cox was an under recruited find for Painter out of Massachusetts who started the team’s final 23 games last season. Cox averaged six points and 2.8 rebounds while shooting 39.8 percent on 3s.

Harris, who is also a 6-foot-3 guard, averaged 3.8 points in 15 minutes per game last season but struggled with his efficiency. The Atlanta, Georgia, native shot 39.1 percent from the field and 31 percent on 3s.

Mayer, a 6-foot-4 freshman guard from Israel, averaged 20 points, five rebounds, 4.3 assists and two steals per game in the FIBA U19 World Cup in Switzerland. The combo guard will handle the point guard duties in the brief moments that Smith is off the floor and will play alongside him as well.

West, a four-star guard from Toledo, Ohio, may have to wait a year to play significant minutes, but was a top 100 recruit after a productive career at Whitmer High School.

The Boilermakers went into the transfer portal and added South Dakota State transfer Oscar Cluff, who will start at the five alongside Kaufman-Renn. Cluff averaged a double-double last season – 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per game – and earned All-Summit League first team honors. Cluff was considered one of the top players available in the transfer portal last spring.

Sophomore Daniel Jacobsen suffered a broken leg that sidelined him after two games last season, but returned over the summer with USA Basketball in the FIBA U19 World Cup in Switzerland. The 7-foot-4 Jacobsen averaged 6.6 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocked shots per game in that event while shooting 60.6 percent from the field.

The Boilermakers also return 6-foot-11 sophomore Raleigh Burgess, who played spot minutes last season and averaged 1.9 points and 1.3 rebounds while shooting 53.5 percent from the floor.

Additional depth will come from North Florida transfer Liam Murphy, a 6-foot-7 senior, and redshirt freshman Jack Benter, a 6-foot-5 guard from Brownstown.

The key for Purdue reaching its potential this winter will be a more formidable defense. The Boilermakers finished with the nation’s No. 53 defense last season, according to KenPom.com. While an elite offense helps to cover that up, Purdue must improve its defense to win the national title.

Bottom line: There’s no escaping expectations this season for Purdue. The Boilermakers are one of the favorites to win the 2026 national championship and have one of the best rosters in the country. Smith is a frontrunner for national player of the year, Kaufman-Renn is as good of a frontcourt scorer as there is in the country and the supporting cast is deep and talented. Anything less than a trip to the Final Four will be considered a disappointment.

Quotable: “I think it’s a good thing. You’ve worked hard to be in a really good position. I think it helps you more from an attention standpoint, a recruiting standpoint, and your program getting noticed, which you always want. But deep down, it doesn’t help you win the next game. I think that’s where your focus has to be: being mature enough to know you still have to do your job, you can’t let your teammates down, you have to stay connected.” – Painter on Purdue handling expectations this season.

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