ST. LOUIS – When the record happened, when Purdue basketball’s Braden Smith broke Bobby Hurley’s 33-year-old mark for career NCAA assists, the Enterprise Center went quiet. More than 18,000 souls were here for second-seeded Purdue’s 104-71 victory against 15th-seeded Queens University in the 2026 NCAA Tournament, none of them making a sound, all of them watching the scoreboard.
The play? We’ve seen the play probably 200 times in the last four years, a pick-and-roll between Purdue point guard Braden Smith and power forward Trey Kaufman-Renn. But this one had a twist. Kaufman-Renn was fouled on the play, perhaps before the shot, perhaps not. Kaufman-Renn also took a dribble or two, moving from the foul line to the rim before getting off the shot. Was it a basket? If so, was it an assist?
Everyone’s watching the scoreboard, where the stat line – points, rebounds, assists, fouls – are kept in real time for all 10 players on the court.
Everyone’s looking at the stat line for No. 3. Smith came into the game with 1,075 career assists, one short of Hurley’s record of 1,076, and the tying assist had come early on one of those typically unselfish Braden Smith assists, where he has the ball in transition and he can do whatever he wants – pull up from 3, bounce to a mid-range jumper, go to the rim. He decides: None of the above. He finds center Oscar Cluff a half-step ahead of his defender, and Cluff converts the easy layup. That’s No. 1,076.
Nobody’s cheering that. We didn’t come here for his first assist. We want to see the second one, and Kaufman-Renn has just scored, and after a delay of several silent seconds, which feels like several minutes, the scoreboard flashes:
No. 3 now has two assists.
No, he now has 1,077 assists.
History! Braden Smith sets NCAA assists record, passes Bobby Hurley
The Purdue crowd erupts. The Purdue bench erupts. In the stands, about 10 rows behind the Boilermakers’ bench, Dustin and Ginny Smith have been watching the scoreboard with everyone else. They see it change, and they’re hugging each other and their younger son, Maddox, an eighth-grader you’ll be hearing plenty about, soon.
On the court, now, Smith is stalking toward the bench. He’s not here for congratulations. He’s getting the play call for Purdue’s next defensive set.
On the scoreboard, nothing. Action continues. This is March Madness in St. Louis, Missouri. They’re not stopping the game to acknowledge a Purdue player’s record.
Minutes later, a stop in the action. It’s the under-12 media timeout, and as players from Purdue and Queens head to their respective benches, the scoreboard flashes a graphic congratulating Purdue’s Braden Smith for breaking Duke star Bobby Hurley’s career NCAA record of 1,076 assists. The guy on the public address system announces the record, and as he drones on and the crowd cheers again, Braden Smith rises from his chair in the Purdue huddle and starts chewing out one of his teammates.
This is who Smith is, on the floor: Fiery, feisty, one of the team’s quietest players away from the game – but its vocal leader on the court.
The record? That’s nice. The celebration? It’ll come later, but right now there are 31 minutes to play against Queens. Just a moment ago, Purdue’s lead was 20-17. This game is too close.
Don’t tell Braden Smith about the record. Not yet. He has a game to win.
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Braden Smith walks off the court to boos. Listen, that’s what happened – but no, the crowd wasn’t booing him. There’s still one game to play Friday night, No. 7 seed Miami against 10th-seeded Missouri, and we’re in St. Louis. This is a pro-Mizzou crowd, and Miami’s running onto the court as Smith, who’d been doing a postgame interview with CBS, walks toward the Purdue locker room.
The crowd is booing Miami.
Smith is locked in, even now. He’s heading toward the tunnel, and he can’t hear anything but this:
Braden!
It’s his dad, Dustin, shouting his name and punching his fist. Braden hears it, hears his dad’s voice amid all that noise, looks that way, gives him a big smile.
Everyone’s smiling after this game, because this wasn’t a good night for Purdue, or even a great one. It was perfect.
The Boilers have survived and advanced, which nobody around here takes for granted, but it’s more than that. The game is such a blowout, Purdue coach Matt Painter is able to pull his starters with more than 5½ minutes left to play, saving valuable energy for the Round of 32 game Sunday against Miami, but it’s more than that.
Braden Smith has broken the record – but it’s more, even, than that.
Smith, who finished with eight assists against just two turnovers, also led all scorers with 26 points. He did it on 15 shots, making 10, including 4-for-6 shooting on 3-pointers.
This is huge, because that was Smith struggling in the Boilermakers’ last four games, those four wins in the Big Ten Tournament when Smith set conference tourney records for assists in a single game (16) and single tourney (46) but was just 4 of 23 from the floor, including 3 of 14 on 3-pointers. The poor shooting wore on Smith, who repeatedly mocked himself for made baskets – pounding his own head, or pretending to be stunned – and whose frustrations boiled over in the first half of the title game against Michigan, when he went all Incredible Hulk on his own jersey, gripping it below the neck and ripping it in half.
That’s why Smith finished the game in that No. 41 practice jersey, no name on the back,
“I didn’t shoot well all week – made 10 shots in four games,” Smith was saying after the win against Queens. “I think I’m my hardest critic. I was very frustrated.”
That was Sunday in Chicago.
This was Friday night in St. Louis: Smith hitting one 3-pointer midway through the second half, then another, then another. He’s punctuating every shot by placing three fingers from his right hand onto his left forearm, injecting those 3s into his veins, and everyone knows what this means:
The only thing about Purdue at the Big Ten tourney that wasn’t perfect, that wasn’t Final Four-good, was Smith’s shooting.
Now it’s great again?
Perfect, as I said. For Purdue, this night was perfect.
Doyel: Queens’ spirit animal is another ceramic dog. The first one broke.
Trey Kaufman-Renn, Matt Painter are sure grateful
Trey Kaufman-Renn is up there, speaking with reporters, and he’s grateful. He’s just scored 25 points on 12-for-18 shooting, but he’s a philosophy major and his thoughts run deeper than that.
He played his first two seasons with 7-foot-4 Zach Edey, the best player in the country. Kaufman-Renn didn’t score lot as a freshman or sophomore, averaging fewer than six points per game, but in practice – when nobody was looking – he was getting better, getting ready for his time in the low post. It came last season, when his scoring jumped to 20.1 ppg.
Kaufman-Renn is remembering Edey on Friday night, when he’s asked about Braden Smith, and he’s seeing his career come full circle. It was TKR who scored on the first assist of Smith’s career, back in November 2022 against Milwaukee and it was TKR who scored on No. 1,077. He’s marveling at his good fortune, of starting his career with the best player in the country (Edey) and ending it with someone he calls “the best ball-handler in college basketball history on my team.”
“As a player,” TKR says, “I’m thankful. Not only the first and last (assists of Smith’s record-setting journey), but he’s accounted for a lot of my scoring throughout my career.”
Indeed, Smith entered Friday night having recorded assists for 20 different teammates – including seven players from Indiana, as well as teammates from Canada (Edey), Australia (Oscar Cluff), Israel (Omer Mayer) and Sweden (Will Berg). Smith has handed out assists to the son of a Purdue great in basketball (Gicarri Harris, Glenn “Big Dog” Robinson’s kid) and football (Myles Colvin, son of Roosevelt Colvin).
But nobody has received more of Smith’s assists than Kaufman-Renn – 225 entering Friday night, and counting.
These two are talking about their friendship, how they’ve become so close over four years, so now’s the time to remind you what happened after the record – during the timeout, when the P.A. guy and the scoreboard and the crowd are honoring Braden Smith. Remember? Smith’s over there in the huddle, rising to his feet and gesturing at a teammate and just hissing, he’s so mad. And the teammate is giving it right back to him before they both sit down, glaring at each other.
The teammate? That was Trey Kaufman-Renn.
The incident? That was nothing, two brothers hashing it out, then putting it behind them.
“Obviously we have our moments and we get on each other,” Smith was saying afterward, “but we can hold each other to that standard because we both have an understanding: We want to win.”
Later, Smith will say he was even feistier earlier in his career, using a part of the male anatomy – rhymes with pick – to describe himself.
“I was so competitive,” he says. “No offense, I was kind of a (jerk). That’s how I was.”
He’s still competitive, still feisty, but he and Kaufman-Renn have been through a lot. So have Smith and his coach, Matt Painter, who’s up there, speaking with reporters. And he’s grateful. Like Kaufman-Renn minutes earlier, Painter is astonished at his good fortune of coaching Edey – “scored the most points at Purdue,” Painter is reminding us – and then this.
“Now to coach somebody that has the most assists ever in the history of Division I basketball,” Painter says, his wonderment almost palpable. “It’s just an unbelievable accomplishment.”
Painter is about to define greatness, telling the room that Braden Smith is so good, he’s earned the right to stay in the game, stay in control of the offense, even when he’s not playing particularly well.
“Even at his worst,” Painter says, “he’s still our best.”
Braden Smith walked out of the United Center in Chicago last week after the worst four-game shooting stretch of his career. He was still Purdue’s best, still playing more minutes than anybody, still leading the Boilermakers to the Big Ten title.
Five days later he walked off the Enterprise Center court Friday night, not hearing the boos for someone else – hearing only the voice of his father – as the best playmaker in NCAA history.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Doyel: Purdue’s Braden Smith heard 1 voice among chorus of boos, was angry during assists record
Reporting by Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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