‘Old School’ Purdue Using Portal to Set Up 2025-26 Run

Unlike several Big Ten schools which recruit new teams each season from the transfer portal, Purdue men’s basketball prospered during the past 10 years mainly with high school recruits.

But like he did when recruiting misjudgments sent the Boilermakers spiraling to the bottom of the Big Ten in 2014, Matt Painter has adjusted to the new status quo.

That adjustment was partially spurred by the unexpected loss of 7-4 freshman center Daniel Jacobsen one minute into his second collegiate game to a freak fractured tibia. Jacobsen’s loss, plus the inability of now former backup center Will Berg to step into that rebounding / shot blocking void, proved consequential to Purdue’s inability to complete a Big Ten title three-peat as well as contributing to the NCAA Sweet 16 loss to Houston.

While confident Jacobsen will be healthy for the 2025-26 season, Painter sought insurance from the portal in the form of 6-11 Oscar Cluff. The nation’s second-leading rebounder in 2024-25, Cluff brings a proven skill set to West Lafayette. The same can be said for North Florida transfer forward Liam Murphy, who led the Atlantic Sun Conference in 3-point shooting a year ago.

While it remains to be seen if Cluff and Murphy can boost Purdue’s hopes of a national championship, their recruitment dispels two myths. The first is that Purdue doesn’t have the cash to invest in players. Who thinks the senior trio of Braden Smith, Trey Kaufman-Renn and Fletcher Loyer didn’t have schools trying to lure them away with promises of life-changing money? Cluff likely wasn’t a bargain, either.

The second is that Painter’s dislike of the transfer portal would prevent him from doing whatever it takes to give Smith, Kaufman-Renn and Loyer another shot at the Final Four in their careers. Purdue has now welcomed 16 transfers as we approach Painter’s 21st season as head coach. Here’s how I’d rank the previous 14.

1. Lance Jones – Purdue doesn’t end the 44-year Final Four drought in 2024 without the graduate transfer guard from Southern Illinois.
2. Jon Octeus – Many remember the 6-4 guard for his spectacular dunk over Indiana’s Colin Hartman in Assembly Hall, but the graduate transfer averaged 9.3 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game in 2014-15 to help the Boilermakers rise from last place in the Big Ten to a tie for third.
3. Tarrance Crump – The underrated point guard behind Carl Landry and David Teague during the 2006-07 season, the junior college transfer helped Purdue win 47 games in his two seasons.
4. Nemanja Calasan – The 6-9 junior college transfer from Croatia was a physical, veteran presence on a 2007-08 team that started three freshmen (Robbie Hummel, JaJuan Johnson, E’Twaun Moore) and two sophomores (Keaton Grant, Chris Kramer).
5. Evan Boudreaux – A graduate transfer from Dartmouth, the 6-8 forward started 16 games in 2018-19 and 2019-20.
6. Jahaad Proctor – The graduate transfer from High Point helped fill a backcourt void in 2019-20 left by Carsen Edwards and Ryan Cline. Proctor averaged 9 points a game.
7. David Jenkins Jr. – The graduate transfer guard from Utah had a knack for hitting buzzer-beating shots during his lone season at Purdue in 2022-23. Jenkins was 12 of 17 (.706) with the shot or game clock under three seconds.
8. Gordon Watt – A starting forward during the 2006-07 season alongside Carl Landry, the Boston College transfer was dismissed from the team before his junior season.
9. Sterling Carter – The Seattle University transfer guard is best remembered for scoring 19 points with the help of 5 of 6 3-point shooting against Indiana in 2014. A knee injury ended his collegiate career.
10. Errick Peck – The former Cathedral standout played three seasons at Cornell before coming to Purdue as a graduate transfer. The 6-6 forward started 10 games for the last-place Boilermakers in 2013-14.
11. Johnny Hill – A graduate transfer guard from Texas-Arlington, Hill started 11 games for Purdue in 2015-16.
12. Marcus White – Back issues contributed to the 6-8 forward spending just one season at Purdue, averaging 10.1 points a game, after transferring from Connecticut.
13. Eden Ewing – The Tyler (Texas) Junior College transfer forward’s career at Purdue lasted six games before his dismissal for a violation of team rules in 2017.
14. Chris Reid – Recruited in the same 2007 class as Hummel, Johnson, Moore and Scott Martin, the 6-9 junior college transfer seldom played during his two seasons in West Lafayette.

Favorable schedule?

If Purdue wins its third Big Ten men’s basketball championship in four seasons come March 2026, give an assist to the league schedule maker.

In addition to the annual series with Indiana, the Boilermakers drew rebuilding Iowa and Wisconsin as their other Big Ten home and away opponents.

If I was coming up with the Purdue home-only schedule, Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State and Oregon would have been on the short list. Also coming to Mackey Arena will be Minnesota, Penn State and Washington. 

The single-play road game slate is highlighted by a trip to Los Angeles to play USC and UCLA. With any luck, Fox Sports and the Big Ten won’t send Purdue to Rutgers three days later.

Maryland is a wild card with new coach Buzz Williams, while Nebraska, Northwestern and Ohio State have made things difficult for Purdue the past few years on their home courts.

It’s a good thing Indiana’s Assembly Hall is a tough ticket because the home-only schedule is not attractive. Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, Oregon, Penn State, Washington and Wisconsin won’t create much of a scalper’s market. In addition to Purdue, Michigan State and Minnesota are the Hoosiers’ home and away opponents.

Illinois and Michigan top a potentially challenging road-only slate for the Hoosiers that also includes Maryland, Ohio State, Rutgers, UCLA and USC.

It’s never too early

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has issued his first off-season NCAA tournament bracket prediction, and Purdue fans hope he is right.

The Boilermakers are the overall No. 1 seed in Lunardi’s bracket, which would mean playing the first two rounds in St. Louis, the regionals in Chicago and the Final Four in Indianapolis.

“For all the talk about bad losses in March, Purdue has been remarkably consistent: The Boilermakers have never been worse than a 5-seed since the 2015-16 season, have reached at least the second weekend in six of the nine tournaments over that span and, despite the ignominy of falling as a 1-seed in 2023, came back with another top seed in 2024 later to emerge as the best team in the country not named UConn,” Lunardi writes.

“The lottery picks are generally not ending up in West Lafayette. And Matt Painter’s best player in recent history, Zach Edey, wasn’t good enough to start as a freshman. But Painter has done a remarkable job in retention and player development. Purdue is excelling as an old-school college basketball team in a new wave era — its reward could be a preseason No. 1 ranking for 2025-26. Having been built largely from the ground up, the Boilermakers seem likely to hold the top spot of our forecasted bracket for the foreseeable future.”

Lunardi lists Indiana among the “last four in” with Marquette, Mississippi and N.C. State.

Good pick

When not raving about the injustice of Shadeur Sanders falling to the Cleveland Browns in the fifth round, ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. had positive things to say about former Purdue offensive lineman Marcus Mbow.

Mbow was taken in the fifth round, the 154th overall pick, by the New York Giants, and his selection was one of the reasons Kiper gave the Giants an A-minus for their draft.

“Marcus Mbow is my favorite guard in the class, and the Giants got him nearly two rounds later than where I had him rated,” Kiper wrote in his NFL Draft wrapup column for ESPN.com. “Watch — he’ll find snaps on offense in 2025.”

The Ringer’s Danny Kelly agreed. Kelly had Mbow 47th overall in his pre-draft rankings, which would have equated to a mid-second round grade.

“I thought the fifth-round selection of Marcus Mbow was a massive value as well,” Kelly said.

Purdue had not had an offensive lineman drafted since Kevin Pamphile went in the fifth round to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2014. Mbow will be reunited with former Boilermaker running back Tyrone Tracy Jr., last year’s fifth-round pick by the Giants.

Barring a surprise season from one of the seniors brought in by coach Barry Odom from the transfer portal, it looks like the 2026 NFL Draft will have just one Boilermaker selected.

Running back Devin Mockobee, the only scholarship player remaining from the Jeff Brohm era (although the scholarship was given by former coach Ryan Walters), could set himself up for a sizeable payday with a big fifth-year senior season.

Mockobee caught 17 passes for 170 yards and a touchdown last season and inched closer to 3,000 career rushing yards at Purdue with a team-best 687 yards and four touchdowns. That versatility, much like what Tyrone Tracy Jr. demonstrated in his fifth-year senior season in 2023, is attractive to many NFL teams.

Mockobee needs 534 yards to join Mike Alstott, Kory Sheets and Otis Armstrong as the only Boilermakers to rush for 3,000 yards.

Kenny Thompson is the former sports editor for the Lafayette Journal & Courier and an award-winning journalist. He has covered Purdue athletics for many years.