Purdue’s Weird Start to the 2025–26 Season

Nobody panic :A letter to myself

Purdue, the pre-season #1 team in the nation, is off to a 2–0 start after wins over Evansville and Oakland last Friday night.

2–0… Why do I feel weird / bad about the start to the season?

Purdue fans, myself included, have a tendency to overreact when it comes to the team. I will openly admit that — as much as I try to keep things down and realistic, my nature (along with the majority of fans) is to freak out when things aren’t going the way we expected. That number 1 next to the team name carries a lot of expectation and when the team doesn’t play to that level, its easy to spiral.

Let me get one thing clear: With what has been shown so far, this is NOT the #1 team in the nation. This team is also not #1 in the Big 10 Conference.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I think we can realistically look at this team and reevaluate where they stand currently — with as little bias as possible.

I will cover the good and the bad and then ultimately try to identify where we stand.

Braden Smith

The Good

Thankfully, Braden Smith is our PG and that comes with a level of overall confidence that this team is going to be ok. His skill and ability alone raises the floor of what this team could be at its worst (I don’t believe we are anywhere near what is the worst possible outcome now).

Smith continues to prove that he can just simply take over a game whenever he feels like it. Against Oakland, when the game was getting a bit dicey, he got downhill for 3 and 1 opportunities and had some ridiculous passing flashes that just seem routine for him at this point. He carried Purdue through the hardest part of that game — he will need to continue to do that moving forward.

Another Good thing so far has been scoring — stick with me here. Even without TKR in the lineup, Purdue is scoring deep into the 80s. Having TKR out of the lineup has allowed us to see some other lineups that showcase forwards like Benter and Liam Murphy who have put together some really good minutes (Murphy with 11pt in 11min Friday night).

Don’t get me wrong, this team HAS to get TKR back into the lineup, but it has been a positive to see that we can still put the orange thing in the 10ft thing at a decent clip.

Fletcher Loyer has to be another tally for the Good column here. He is shooting well and has had more success putting the ball on the court than in recent seasons. He also seems to be shooting ball with more confidence this season — at times last year he seemed hesitant. This year, he is slinging that thing whenever he gets an inch on his defender and that is really encouraging to see.

He is one of the best shooters in the country and him being confident in that shot is going to be a good thing for Purdue any way you slice it. When he is a real threat on the perimeter, that opens a lot of other things up and should lead to wide open shots for the role players on this team.

Lastly, I think the 2 guard spot is a Good thing here. From what we have seen, either Gicarri or CJ Cox are going to have a decent night. Even more, it looks like Painter is just going to play the hot hand and that really is ok with me at this point in the season. Fast forward to January, I’d like one of them to stick out and be “that guy” where we expect him to be the better guard. I’d bet on CJ if I had to.

TKR

The Bad

I think the first thing that need to be addressed in the Bad section is the front court of this team.

TKR has been out of the past 2 games to a lower body injury and is expected to be back for the matchup against Alabama on Thursday night. He has to be thrown in this Bad group because of his lack of availability — But as soon as he is back into the fold I am sure that he will be on the Good side of things.

Oscar Cluff and Daniel Jacobsen are making me a bit nervous as I don’t think we are getting what we were told we would get out of either of them.

DJ is so tall and lanky and yes he’s gotten a couple of good blocks, but man he just gets pushed around in the paint. He isn’t strong enough to hold his position and is getting physically dominated on both sides of the ball — I mean these guards are driving right into him because them know they will move him out of the way.

At this point, I don’t know exactly what he should be doing because it does look like he is putting in the effort and just can’t get it done. This makes me nervous.

Oscar Cluff had a bit of a better game Friday night were he turned it on in the second half and had 6 offensive rebounds, but he really isn’t rebounding the ball near the clip that we were told he would. He seems to be out of position or just simply out worked / jumped for the boards. If he can’t turn into this high-level rebounder that we expected, our front court is going to continue to get smoked on the boards (here is a secret: TKR isn’t a good rebounder either so he won’t fix the issue).

The other BAD point is the defense as a whole. This team just gets smoked on all levels of defense; off the step, on the boards, at the rim. Teams are getting WHATEVER THEY WANT offensively against us. I am not going to pretend that I am a defensive scheme genius, but man something has to be done.

There was a bit of a war on X a couple weeks ago when Raphel Davis said that Braden Smith needed to have some “Pride” when it came to defense. I completely disagree with this, Braden cannot be asked to do everything and he isn’t built to be that lockdown defender. That should be either Gicarri or CJ. Regardless, this team needs to look themselves in the mirror and make the decision that they are going to get after it on the defensive end of the floor.

If they don’t, this team is going to lose games they should not.

Where does this team stand?

Now that we are real and honest about what has been good or bad, I think it’s important for the fanbase to look at this team without bias.

This team might be a top 10 team in the country — and I don’t think that is a bold thing to say. If we look at the Floridas, Arizonas, Houstons, and Uconns of the nation, we would get beat by all of them in our current form. Can this team get to a point where they can beat these teams: yes. I believe in this team.

It is really hard to evaluate this team fully without TKR playing in the past 2 games and I understand that. Regardless, I think with everything we have seen, this team is a 8th-13th best team in the country.

If they come together and beat Alabama this Thursday, I think I move them to 5th-8th best team in the country.

In the conference, Illinois and Michigan have clearly been better that Purdue in my eyes. You could even argue that UCLA and Michigan State have been better. However, I am going to put Purdue 3rd in my power rankings in the BIG 10 (see full power rankings here)

This team has a lot of work to do — I trust that this guy here ^ will put them in the right place for the game this Thursday.

What are your thoughts on the team this year?

Am I over exaggerating?

Am I to positive?

LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS!