Floor burns and fierce competition; welcome to Day 1 of Purdue basketball practice

Posted by Admin September 24, 2024 Basketball

WEST LAFAYETTE — As a loose ball rolls toward the sideline, an All-Big Ten point guard darts to the floor, diving head first in an attempt to keep the play alive.

Braden Smith isn’t praised for his hustle.

For his effort, Smith hears a whistle signifying the ball did indeed go out of bounds and that Smith and his teammates were still on defense.

Moments earlier, two lumbering big men Will Berg and Trey Kaufman-Renn were wrestling on the ground over a loose ball that, only after the whistle blew, did they both check to make sure there was no blood.

Welcome to the first day of Purdue basketball practice, where these instances are an expectation, not a celebration. By Purdue’s belief, a championship isn’t on the line in April if it also isn’t on the line inside an empty Mackey Arena in September.

“(Matt Painter) wants people that are going to fight for their spot and not be entitled and who dive after loose balls,” Kaufman-Renn said. “When you have a whole team of that, yeah, practice is going to get competitive.”

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Earlier that same day, Trent Sisley, a Purdue recruiting target, announced his commitment to Boilermaker rival Indiana. This coming just days after another top recruit, Jalen Haralson canceled a weekend visit to Purdue. In June, the top-rated player in Purdue’s six-player freshman class asked out of his national letter of intent, then signed with BYU.

Painter doesn’t fret over that stuff.

He’s going to lose recruiting battles, and he’ll get another player who fits the Boilermaker mold using a formula that’s worked now for more than a decade, finding guys who, even if they’re the program’s poster child, are willing to do the same dirty work as everyone else.

“We haven’t done a better job recruiting the last 10 or 11 years,” Painter said. “We’ve done a better job evaluating. Being able to evaluate to know what works. It starts with competitive spirit, there’s no doubt about that.”

Those who are willing to accept Painter’s sales pitch, one without any guarantees other than a scholarship and an opportunity, have come off better for it.

Kaufman-Renn openly spoke last season about how many players in his position would’ve left. Kaufman-Renn was the 50th-ranked recruit in the 2021 class, according to 247Sports. Kaufman-Renn spent his first season at Purdue as a redshirt and his second season rarely seeing playing time before he became a starter in his third season for a team that played in the national championship game.

Junior guard Fletcher Loyer came to Purdue with no promises and has started every game for the past two seasons.

“That’s how it should be. That’s how you build good characters, how you build good teammates,” Loyer said. “If a guy can beat you out, you’ve got to respect him. When you have the respect of the guys that are playing ahead of you and you respect your teammates, that builds trust. When you’ve got trust on a team, you go a long way.”

Utilizing Purdue’s three returning starters — Smith, Loyer and Kaufman-Renn — for five-on-five runs during summer practices ideally created an unfair advantage for the trio along with the players assigned as their teammates on a given day.

On Monday, as summer turns to fall and practices become official, there were clear signs that Purdue’s recruiting philosophy continues to churn out exactly the desired result.

On one side: Brian Waddell, Gicarri Harris and Daniel Jacobsen teaming with the returning starters. In a winner keeps the ball pickup, an opposing team that included Berg, Cam Heide, Myles Colvin and freshmen CJ Cox, Jack Benter and Raleigh Burgess scored six straight times.

“Everybody’s super competitive and I think Paint does a great job with recruiting guys that love basketball and want to win,” Smith said. “When you have a bunch of guys like that, we’ll butt heads here and there, but at the same time, once we all fight together towards one goal, it’ll be pretty tough for teams to beat us.”

Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on X and Instagram @samueltking.