Purdue's Braden Smith shattered NCAA history, becoming the all-time assists leader in a dominant first-round tournament victory.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Purdue point guard Braden Smith had 26 points and eight assists on Friday night in the NCAA Tournament. The Boilermakers been Queens 104-71 to advance to the second round, but history was made in the process as well.
With Smith's second assist, he passed former Duke star Bobby Hurley to become the all-time assist leader in NCAA history. He now has
At the 12:11 mark of the first half on Friday night, Trey Kaufman-Renn set a ball screen for Smith and rolled to the basket. Smith delivered the perfect pass to Kaufman-Renn for an and-one record-breaker.
"Congratulations to Braden to break that record to have the most assists in the history of college basketball. It's an unbelievable feat,'' Purdue coach Matt Painter said. "When (former Purdue center) Zach Edey started to put up numbers, to have the most points and rebounds ever at Purdue, now to coach somebody that has the most assists ever in the history of Division I basketball is an unbelievable accomplishment.
"Especially from the great Bobby Hurley, who we were in the same grade and he was just the quintessential point guard and winner at Duke University when he played and has had a fabulous coaching career. But for him to have that honor for 33 years just speaks to how great Bobby Hurley was. And you look at the other guys that are right behind him with Chris Corchiani and Ed Cota. It's a big-time achievement. Happy for him and excited about advancing in this tournament and having some fun.
Painter was a player at Purdue during the same four years that Hurley played at Duke — Painter had 276 career assists — and he's always had a lot of respect for what he accomplished 30-plus years ago.
To see Smith break those records has adding meaning because of the connections. He got his first assist back in November of 2022 on a pass to Trey Kaufman-Renn, and four years later, he did the same thing on Friday night. The seniors have enjoyed this run together, and Kaufman-Renn has an enormous amount of respect for what Smith has accomplished.
"I think it's just been really cool over the years, us kind of growing together,'' Kaufman-Renn said. "Me modeling my game around I'm going to have the best ball handler in college basketball history on my team. So how am I going to develop my game around that?
"It's the same thing when we had Zach on our team and that's the advice Coach gave me. You know he's going to play. He's such a great player. So you have to be able to fit with those guys. So when you have such special players, just being able to model your game around them. As a player I'm thankful. Like you said he's not only the first and last but he's accounted for a lot of my scoring throughout my career. So it's been great.''