A Look Back at Purdue Basketball: Braden Smith

Mar 15, 2026; Chicago, IL, USA; Purdue Boilermakers guard Braden Smith (3) celebrates after the game against the Michigan Wolverines during the men's Big Ten Conference Tournament Championship at United Center. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images | David Banks-Imagn Images

2025-2026 Stats:
39 games played (39 starts)
557 points (14.3)
138 rebounds (3.5)
345 assists (8.8)
66 steals (1.7)
8 blocks (0.2)
113 turnovers (2.9)
.440 field goal percentage
.362 3-point percentage
.825 free throw percentage

2025-2026 Awards / Honors
1st Team All- Big Ten
All-Big Ten Tournament Team
Big Ten Tournament MVP
Consensus All-American
NCAA Tournament All-Region Team
NCAA Record for Career Assists (1103)

Season Retrospective

Honestly, what more can we say about number 3 (or 41 for a short time). Braden Smith came into the season as the #1 player on the #1 team in the country. The preseason favorite to win the Wooden Award, Smith and the Purdue team had sky-high expectations and what looked to be a magical path to glory with tournament host cities in St. Louis, Chicago, and the Final Four in Indianapolis. It was obvious where this team wanted to get to: back home again in Indiana, but for Smith, there was another goal to reach. Starting the season with 758 career assists, Smith needed 319 to reach 1077 and stand alone at the top of the NCAA career assist mountain. Everyone started contemplating how many games Purdue needed to play and how many assists Smith needed to average to reach the top. Braden was all but guaranteed 33 games meaning he needed to average a maximum of 9.7 assists per game, which was an entire assist better per game than his previous year. Then again, at the start of the season, the odds had Purdue playing 40 games and Smith shattering the record. Only time would tell.

To start the year, Braden simply did what he needed to do to help Purdue win. Whether is was a 29-point performance to help beat Alabama on the road or a 12-assist game to win the opening round of the Baha Mar invitational, Smith and Purdue stormed out to an 8-0 start and kept up with their lofty expectations.

Then a humbling performance in Mackey against Iowa State took some wind out of their sails. Smith finished that game with 11 points and 8 assists but a then season-high 6 turnovers in a 23-point loss to the Cyclones. Smith and Purdue would bounce right back though as the Boilermakers won 9 straight games as non-conference play ended and conference season began. Smith began that run with 3 straight 10+ assist performances and 5 out of 9.

What followed was the roughest stretch of the season for Purdue as the Boilermakers dropped 3 straight games to UCLA on the road, Illinois at home, and then in Assembly Hall to IU. Although, all 3 games were close, Braden’s performance was inconsistent in them. He struggled mightily against UCLA, finishing with 12 points, 4 assists, but 4 costly turnovers. Braden then played excellent against Illinois in Keaton Wagler’s game of his life. Braden 27 and 12 but Wagler finished with 46. Lastly, Braden posted a decent 14 and 5 against Indiana but again had 4 turnovers.

Purdue would finally stop the bleeding by beating a bad Maryland team en route to winning 4 straight games including an overtime thriller at Nebraska. The Boilermakers then played a roller coaster of a stretch by losing to Michigan at home, beating Indiana by 29 to secure a 4-4 career record against IU for Smith, then dropping back-to-back games to Michigan State at home and Ohio State on the road. At this point, was teetering with falling out of the AP top-25 and was fighting for its position for not only the Big Ten Tournament but the NCAA tournament. Braden though, was well keeping the assist pace and kept putting up good performances.

Purdue would finish the regular season with a win at Northwestern (Smith finished 1 UCLA victory short of winning at all 18 new Big Ten team’s home courts) and a loss on senior day to Wisconsin. The loss pushed Purdue to 7th in the Big Ten and trending in the wrong direction of bracketology. Something flipped once Purdue got to Chicago for the Big Ten Tournament. For starters, Braden Smith began the tournament with a bang, finishing with 16 assists against Northwestern, a Big Ten Tournament record that included perhaps the best assist of the season, a swat of the ball while diving out of bounds to start a fast break.

That momentum generated from Smith sparked Purdue to 2 more victories against Nebraska and UCLA to set up a Big Ten Tournament Championship game against Michigan. Michigan had lost only twice the entire season to that point and was widely considered to be 1 of the 3 heavy favorites going into the NCAA tournament alongside Arizona and Duke. This is where Braden Smith decided to add another legend to himself when he ripped his jersey early in the game in frsutration. This led to him wearing the number 41 for the remainder of the game in which he put up 14 points, 11 assists. and 0 turnovers en route to a Big Ten Tournament victory over eventual National Champion, Michigan.

With 11 assists against Michigan, Braden would being going into the NCAA tournament with 1075 career assists, meaning he needed 1 to tie the all-time record and 2 to break it against Queen’s University. It took less than 3 minutes into the Queens game for Smith to tie the record with an assist to Oscar Cluff and just before the under-12 media timeout, Braden passed to Trey Kaufman-Renn for a make and a foul to put Smith atop the assist mountain. Trey was scored on Braden’s first career assist, so a fitting book end on a record-breaking night.

Of course, Smith would go on to record 6 more assists on the night in an emphatic Round of 64 victory and Purdue would move on to play the Miami Hurricanes in the Round of 32. Purdue would win this game though Braden did not have a good performance, finishing with 12 points, 8 assists, and a career-high 8 turnovers. With a victory over the Hurricanes, Purdue headed out west to San Jose where they would beat former Boilermaker, Cam Heide and Texas to advance to the Elite 8. Braden had 16 and 5 against the Longhorns and off his drive and miss with less than 5 seconds remaining in the game, Trey Kaufman-Renn tipped in the game-winner. This set up the West Regional Final against Arizona where Smith played an excellent first half. Smith went into halftime with 11 point including 3 made 3’s, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists while the Boilermakers led the Wildcats by 7. Unfortunately, that is where the good vibes ended as Arizona woke up and outscored Purdue 48-26 in the second half to stop Smith and the Boilermakers from going to their second Final Four in 3 seasons. It would also mark the final game for Braden Smith who finished the game with 13 points, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds including his 1103rd assist to Fletcher Loyer, whom he started every single game as a Boilermaker next to and finished 117-32 (the winning senior class in Purdue history).

Of course, we can look back on this season for Purdue as a whole and think what if but it fair to consider the season a success despite not meeting the ultimate goal. Braden Smith is a huge reason why it was a successful season. Not only did he break records and help Purdue get to a regional final, but he played all 39 games with his head held high and made the Purdue basketball team better (much like all 4 of his seasons). This feeling of saying goodbye to Braden Smith is so bittersweet because of course we will miss his unbelieveable talent, but we are so glad and appreciative of the light he helped shine on this program. We are witnessing the best 5-year stretch of Purdue basketball history and can appreciate it in real time. 4 of those 5 years featured Braden Smith and we thank him for all that he has done while in the Old Gold and Black. Wherever his next chapter in his basketball career or in life may take him, we know that his Purdue career was one of the most special we’ve seen and he topped it with a great senior season.

Thank you Braden, and Boiler Up!