WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue basketball seniors Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn were two of 50 players named to the Wooden Award watch list, the organization announced this afternoon.
The list completes all the preseason watch lists by most organizations. Smith and Kaufman-Renn are mentioned in all of them.
Smith, a first-team All-American and Cousy Award recipient given to the nation’s top point guard following the 2024-25 season, was a Wooden Award All-American honoring the nation’s top five players a year ago. It marked the third straight year that a Boilermaker was named a Wooden All-American (Zach Edey – 2023, 2024).
Smith, one of the favorites for National Player of the Year honors, is off to an outstanding start in his senior season leading Purdue to a 4-0 record. He is averaging 17.8 points, 8.5 assists and 4.8 rebounds per game while making 8-of-20 (.400) from long distance and 19-of-25 (.760) from the free throw line. He was named Big Ten Player of the Week on Monday after leading Purdue to wins over No. 8 Alabama on the road and Akron. In the win over the Crimson Tide, Smith scored 21 of his game-high 29 points in the second half to go along with seven rebounds and four assists, becoming the first player since Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield in January 2016, to reach those marks on the road in a top-10 contest.
Smith is nearing in on 1,500 career points and 800 career assists and is one of seven players in NCAA history to have at least 1,400 points, 775 assists and 550 career rebounds.
Kaufman-Renn, meanwhile, is off to an equally-impressive start during his senior season. A preseason All-American and candidate for the Karl Malone Award given to the nation’s top power forward, Kaufman-Renn is averaging 18.0 points, 15.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game in two games after missing the season’s first two games with an injury.
He was dominant in the win over Alabama, tallying 19 points with 15 rebounds and five assists, becoming the third player in the last 30 years (North Carolina’s Joe Forte – 2001; Wake Forest’s Tim Duncan – 1996) to have at least 15 points, 15 rebounds and five assists in a top-10 showdown.
He then added 17 points and 15 rebounds in the win over Akron, giving him back-to-back 15-point, 15-rebound games. Kaufman-Renn’s 15-rebound efforts have tied a career high and he now has 15-rebound games in three of his last four games and of his 30 rebounds on the season, 15 are on the offensive end.
A year ago, Kaufman-Renn became just the third Big Ten player in league history to average 20 points, 6.5 rebounds and two assists while shooting at least 59 percent from the field (Zach Edey, Evan Eschmeyer). He was the only player in the country to reach those marks last season.
The No. 1-ranked Boilermakers will play Memphis on Thursday in the Baha Mar Championship, starting at 6 p.m. ET, on the CBS Sports Network.