ST. LOUIS — Purdue guard Braden Smith broke former Duke star Bobby Hurley’s Division I assist record on Friday night, picking up his second of the game and the 1,077th of his career with a feed to Trey Kaufman-Renn with 12:11 to go in the first half of the Boilermakers’ NCAA Tournament game against Queens.
Smith went on to score 26 points and finish with eight assists in second-seeded Purdue’s 104-71 rout of the No. 15 seed Royals.
The All-American already was the only player in NCAA history with at least 1,500 points, 1,000 assists and 500 career rebounds, and Smith is one of two players along with Southern’s Avery Johnson to have had at least 300 assists in two different seasons.
“I don’t think it’s really set in, because to me, again, it’s my job. It’s what I’m supposed to do,” Smith said. “You’re supposed to get guys the ball to go score, and obviously I have a lot of great people around me who can do that.”
Guys like Kaufman-Renn, who finished with 25 points, and Fletcher Loyer, who had 14.
“People trust me with the ball in my hands,” Smith said, “and my teammates trust me, and the coaching staff trusts me.”
Smith picked up his first assist Friday night on a feed to Oscar Cluff a couple of minutes into their game against the Atlantic Sun champions. But it seemed as if the second might not come when Loyer missed an open 3-pointer that would have done it, and Kaufman-Renn missed an even more wide-open jumper from the foul line.
Kaufman-Renn finally converted off Smith’s feed a few minutes later — and all the senior guard did was ever-so-briefly stick a finger in the air as a crowd tilted heavily toward Purdue fans waved signs and gave him a standing ovation.
“The crowd went crazy and I thought it was for my Euro step,” Kaufman-Renn said, “but I guess it wasn’t.”
Smith was good enough coming out of Westfield High School, located about an hour southeast of West Lafayette and on the northern outskirts of Indianapolis — the site of this year’s Final Four — that he was voted Indiana Mr. Basketball as a senior.
Yet most of his scholarship offers came from the likes of Appalachian State, Belmont and Montana. Purdue was his only high-major at the time of his commitment, though schools such as Indiana, Villanova and Gonzaga had started to pay attention.
Did they ever miss out on a gem.
“It is surreal,” Boilermakers coach Matt Painter said. “He’s an unbelievable passer, man. He makes the game look easy at times.”
Smith and Loyer, a fellow Indiana native, arrived on campus in 2022 and joined Painter’s lineup from Day 1, which put them at 146 starts and counting by tip-off against Queens on Friday night. Along the way, Smith and Loyer were part of a couple of Big Ten regular-season title teams, a couple Big Ten tourney titles, and reached the 2024 national title game.
They wound up losing to UConn in Glendale, Arizona, to finish as the runner-up for the second time in school history.
Purdue still has never won a title. But that would certainly be quite the capstone to Smith’s career.
He earned 12 first-team votes for AP All-America this week, landing him on the second team. Smith was a first-team pick last year and honorable mention for the 2023-24 season, making him a rare player to receive recognition in three consecutive seasons.
Last weekend, Smith set the Big Ten Tournament assists record while helping Purdue beat Michigan for the championship.
“It’s been fun because people will come up to me and say, ‘Man, you guys run some really good stuff,’” Painter said. “But guys like this make the plays work. When guys like this move on, you’re like, ‘Hey, what about all those plans you ran that were so great?’ They are not as great anymore.’ And any coach will tell you that. Players make things happen.”
