SAN JOSE, Calif. — CJ Cox leaned his head back, his eyes welling up as he tried to process the ending to his sophomore season with Purdue basketball.
An hour earlier, Cox and the Boilermakers were on top of the world, leading the favored Arizona Wildcats by seven points at halftime in the Elite 8 as Purdue fans were starting to sense the destiny of a Final Four in Indianapolis.
Though he kept his composure, Cox was obviously in pain, both in his not-fully-healed right knee and in his heart, after Arizona came back to ruin Purdue’s March Madness dreams, looking every bit deserving of a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament by outscoring the Boilers by 22 in the second half of a 79-64 win at SAP Center.
“It definitely sucks that we lost in this stage and we were one game away,” Cox said. “That was definitely one of our goals.”
Cox was like a lot of teammates in that locker room.
Many weren’t highly-touted prospects in high school, but Purdue saw something in them. And now they feel they owe a debt of gratitude to the school for plucking them from obscurity and placing them on one of the top programs in college basketball.
When you fall short, it hurts, but especially in a case like Purdue, whose diamond-in-the-rough recruits had Arizona, with two McDonalds All-Americans and three other four-stars in its freshman class alone, backed against the wall.
“To win big games and beat good teams, you’ve got to play a full 40 minutes,” senior Fletcher Loyer said. “It stinks we didn’t do that.”
Loyer was one of the higher-profile recruits in the locker room. He had four stars next to his name in all the 2022 lists put out by recruiting services. He could’ve gone to other power conference programs, but said moments after his last game he made the right choice.
Loyer and Cox sat in the midst of a brokenhearted room full of guys who began their season bonding over Navy SEAL training and ended it one 20-minute half from college basketball’s biggest stage.
But Loyer delivered a profound statement about an era of Purdue basketball that will move on without him. Without Braden Smith. Without Trey Kaufman-Renn, Oscar Cluff and Liam Murphy.
“The bar is as high as these guys want it to be,” Loyer said. “This group’s got a lot of talent. You see it every day in practice. You see guys that didn’t even play this year that you think can play in the NBA.”
Presumably, Loyer is referring to Antione West, who redshirted this season.
Smith’s story has been well documented over four years. Purdue outrecruited Belmont for a player who’d go on to become the NCAA’s all-time leader in assists. Like Cox, Smith realizes Purdue took a chance and saw something in him others didn’t.
He increased his value in an era when proven players are lured by big bidders. On Friday, Smith echoed a year-long sentiment that the grass isn’t always greener. He, like others, wanted to pay back Purdue for what it provided them.
The Boilermakers hoped to do that next week in Indianapolis but ran into a buzzsaw, one with more money, more talent and more plays over the final 20 minutes of a basketball game.
With that, three of Purdue’s all-time greats left the locker room after a game for the final time, still not fully debt free for what Matt Painter’s staff gave them. So they pass it on to the next.
This is Purdue’s mechanism. While others try to rebuild through the transfer portal, the Boilermakers just build.
“When Carsen (Edwards) left, people thought Purdue wasn’t going to be good. When Jaden (Ivey) left, people thought Purdue wasn’t going to be good. Zach (Edey) left; people didn’t think Purdue was going to be good,” sophomore guard Gicarri Harris said. “It doesn’t matter who leaves. They’ve all left an impact and it’s up to us now to instill that into the younger players. We know what it takes to get to this spot.”
Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on X and Instagram @samueltking.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Purdue basketball falls in Elite 8, but outgoing class leaves indelible legacy
Reporting by Sam King, Lafayette Journal & Courier / Lafayette Journal & Courier
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