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Bruce Parkinson knows good point guard play when he sees it, and from the stands at Westfield High School in the suburbs of Indianapolis, Purdue’s all-time assists leader — at least at the time — could see Braden Smith had the goods.
Thing is, to appreciate how Smith could command a basketball court so completely as a passer, scorer and defender, you really had to see it live. During Smith’s breakout junior season, the pandemic-induced suspension of in-person recruiting made that impossible for college coaches.
Parkinson has never been one to meddle in his alma mater’s business or pester Boilermakers coach Matt Painter and his staff with recommendations. But he made an exception with Smith, the son of not one but two basketball coaches.
“I was trying to explain a little bit further about the atmosphere he grew up in with (parents) Ginny and Dustin (Smith) and their basketball backgrounds, and the kind of people that they were,” said Parkinson, a four-year starter for the Boilermakers in the mid-1970s. “Such a high-quality family. Now people are seeing the dedication he has to the game.”
This decade of excellence for Purdue basketball — nine straight NCAA Tournaments as a No. 5 seed or better — has largely been defined by big men, from towering centers Isaac Haas and Matt Haarms to burly forwards Caleb Swanigan and Trevion Williams and peaking with 7-foot-4 two-time national player of the year Zach Edey.
Under Painter, Purdue has become a metronome of a program, clicking off six Sweet 16 appearances in the past eight years. This time, though, it’s Smith, an undersized iron man and All-American orchestrating one of the country’s most intricate offenses, who has the tone for the Boilermakers’ Sweet 16 run.
“The way that he controls the game is just different than anybody else,” Purdue power forward Trey Kaufman-Renn said.
To upset top-seeded Houston and its relentless, chest-to-chest defense on Friday night in the Midwest Region semifinal in Indianapolis, the Boilermakers will need another giant effort from the 6-foot Smith.
“He has a lot of pressure. He’s our main ball handler, and we trust him to do a lot of different things,” Purdue assistant coach and former point guard P.J. Thompson said after Saturday’s win over McNeese. “I always talk to him about how to dominate the game from the shoulders up. So Braden is a unique, special player, and I’m glad he’s on our team.”
Dustin and Ginny Smith met at Arkansas Tech, where they played Division II basketball — Dustin a point guard and Ginny a shooting guard. They moved to Indiana when Braden was about to turn 4, and both became coaches. Ginny Smith was an assistant and then head coach of the girls’ team at Westfield High for a total of 13 years, and Dustin Smith still runs a local AAU program.
Of course, Braden grew up with a basketball in his bassinet, but he also played baseball, football and soccer. By around the fourth grade, Ginny Smith said, Braden decided he wanted to focus on basketball.
He was a good player but a small one, weighing about 125 pounds as a high school freshman. When school shut down in the spring of 2020, Smith made basketball a full-time job and went about the work of changing his body. He and Westfield’s strength and conditioning coach would meet every day at a makeshift garage weight room.
“He lived in the gym, lived in the weight room,” Ginny Smith said. “I lived in the kitchen preparing so much food just to try to get some weight on him.”
To bulk up, he was eating like a football lineman twice his weight. Ginny Smith said Braden was taking in between 7,000-7,500 calories a day, with protein shakes on top of each meal, plus small meals and snacks in between.
“When I say to you it was disgusting, it was legitimately disgusting,” Ginny Smith said. “There were times I would be watching him eat, I would almost gag because I’m like, ‘Where’s he putting this food at?’
“It’s almost comical now. I feel like we’ve done some damage. I watch him as a junior in college and he eats such small meals. He’s like, Mom, I just can’t eat a ton at one time. And I’m like, well, you’re probably traumatized.”
Ginny Smith said Braden put on 30 pounds from his freshman to junior year. Now listed at 170 pounds, Braden still looks far from imposing behind his thick brown beard, but a case can be made that no player in college basketball carries a heavier load.
Smith played all 40 minutes in the NCAA Tournament’s first two rounds against High Point and McNeese to push his season average to 36.9 minutes per game, 11th in Division I. No other player left in the tournament ranks in the top 50.
“He’s the top of the scouting report now, which is a different thing than when it was Edey and others,” Parkinson said. “When he comes down the floor, and he gets a one-high ball screen by Trey (Kaufman-Renn) and they overplay that, somebody jumps out. Then it’s another one, and then it’s another one, then he drives. He plays almost every minute and his intensity level, he’s not just waiting. He’s the conductor of everything that’s happening on offense and defense now.”
On Feb. 28, in a victory against UCLA in Mackey Arena, Smith had eight assists to pass Parkinson’s mark of 691 and become the Boilermakers’ career leader.
That Smith ended up in West Lafayette, Ind., is a testament to the stability and consistency of a program that has had two coaches over the last 44 years. Dustin Smith grew up in Indiana and was a childhood friend of Austin Parkinson, Bruce’s son and a Purdue player under coach Gene Keady in the early 2000s.
By March 2021, Braden Smith had eight Division I offers, all mid-majors and none from Indiana schools. He hadn’t committed to Belmont, but Ginny Smith said Braden seemed to be headed in that direction.
That month, Purdue assistant Micah Shrewsberry left to become head coach at Penn State, and Boilermakers commit Jameel Brown decided to follow him to State College, Pa. That sent Purdue looking for a guard.
“I jumped right into watching film of about five or six guys, and (Smith) was the only guy that wasn’t nationally ranked, but he looked the best on film,” Painter said. “I like watching film, but I want to see you in person. But we couldn’t do it at that point (because of COVID-19 restrictions). I trusted some other people in the business after watching him that he had that competitive gene and that he was tough and he was a leader and that he can really, really pass the basketball.”
Those other people: Bruce and Austin Parkinson, who is now the women’s basketball coach at Butler and is still close with Ginny and Dustin Smith.
Austin Parkinson goes way back with Purdue assistant coach Paul Lusk and Painter. Parkinson said he got a call from Lusk inquiring about Smith and told him the kid was a “no-brainer.” Parkinson believed Smith was an ideal fit for Purdue’s system, which requires the point guard to read defenses and decipher where the openings and favorable matchups will be within set plays.
“He’s one of the best passers I’ve ever seen,” Austin Parkinson said he told Lusk. “This is a match. This is a perfect situation.”
Then Bruce Parkinson spoke to Painter, too. Things moved quickly from there.
Ginny Smith said one Zoom call with Braden and the Purdue coaches was all it took to win him over. She forced him to sleep on it, but within a couple of days he was committed.
“Even though it was a short courtship, it’s been a great relationship,” Ginny Smith said.
As a senior, Smith led Westfield to its first sectional championship and became the first player from the school to be named Indiana’s Mr. Basketball.
Since arriving at Purdue, Smith has started every game he has played, running Painter’s offense.
“We have probably 10 words per play, and just understanding the term and definition of each of those words (is challenging). Each word obviously has a meaning and an action,” Smith said. “So you take it in order. It’s complicated at first. I started to get good at it my freshman year, so I understood it.”
Now he’s mastered it. He is calm amid chaos, manipulating defenses and maneuvering his teammates into open spaces.
“It’s incredible what he’s been doing,” freshman Gicarri Harris said. “He knows all his reads, where to find everybody. It makes it a lot easier for me to play with him. He’s very vocal, too. He’ll let you know if you’re doing stuff right or doing stuff wrong. He’ll let you know, get you in the right spot.”
Smith sits second in the nation in assists at 8.6 per game. He is also second on the team in scoring (16.0) and, maybe most impressive considering his size, second in rebounding at 4.5 per game, proving you don’t have to be a giant to be the center of attention for Purdue.
“He makes us go,” Painter said. “There’s no doubt about it.”
(Top photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
