In the four years since college players have been allowed by the NCAA to capitalize on their name, image and likeness, four players who earned AP First Team All-America honors have returned to play the following season.
Half of those are Purdue players.
The latest coup for Matt Painter and his staff came Monday: Braden Smith, the star guard who would have commanded big money on the transfer market or could have been selected somewhere in the 2025 NBA Draft, will run it back with the Boilermakers in 2025-26.
Smith follows former Purdue star Zach Edey on the short list of All-Americans who not only put their pro futures on hold after big seasons, but also returned to their respective schools. Of the four who returned since NIL went into effect on July 1, 2021, he’s just the second guard — joining North Carolina’s RJ Davis, who made the same choice last season.
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It speaks to the promise of Purdue next season (more on that in a bit!) and also the plan in place under Painter: to build the foundation by bucking trends of transfer-heavy teams and relying instead on continuity and on character. Over the last two seasons, Purdue has now secured its two biggest offseason commitments for its subsequent season’s roster by locking down a homegrown star instead of looking outward.
The results speak for themselves, too. In the last decade, Purdue has the eighth-most wins among all college programs with 280. In that span, it has been top-two among Big Ten teams in minutes continuity — a KenPom.com stat determined by what percentage of a team’s minutes are played by the same player…
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