CHICAGO (AP) — Braden Smith ripped his jersey in frustration because he missed some early shots. His day was far from a loss.
Smith found his touch, moved within one assist of the NCAA career record held by Bobby Hurley of Duke and helped No. 18 Purdue beat No. 3 Michigan 80-72 on Sunday for the Big Ten Tournament championship.
Smith finished with 14 points on 6-of-12 shooting after going a combined 4 for 23 the previous three days against Northwestern,
Nebraska and UCLA. He had 11 more assists to pull within one of Hurley's mark of 1,076, and was selected the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
“It’s awesome,” he said. "Obviously it would have been a little bit better to get it today, but at the end of the day, we won, and that’s important to me. Obviously it goes a long way when you have a lot of good people that surround myself. I thank all my teammates obviously throughout my four years who have helped me achieve that.
"It goes to them just as much as it goes to me."
Smith put himself in position to tie Hurley with a little over six minutes remaining in the game. He passed to Trey Kaufman-Renn, who hit a floater to give the Boilermakers a 66-56 lead, but didn't get another assist the rest of the way.
Smith figures to break Hurley's record when Purdue meets Queens in the NCAA Tournament in St. Louis on Friday. The Boilermakers are the second seed in the West.
Smith is a bit of an anomaly in an era of one-and-done players and the transfer portal. He has played in 145 games over four seasons, and every one of them has been for Purdue.
“He was able to stay and keep growing and keep getting better,” coach Matt Painter said. “Now he’s chasing history from an individual standpoint. It’s also something that we share with him because these are passes that other people have to make shots. ... You can’t get the record if people can’t make baskets.
"Just because you’re a good passer, you pass to a bunch of bozos that can’t shoot, you’re not getting that award.”
Smith was more concerned with his own shot. He switched from his usual No. 3 to No. 41 with no name on his back in the first half after he ripped his jersey with both hands — “Superman style,” as he put it.
“I was really frustrated," Smith said. "A lot of misses these past four games, and I was really frustrated because I put a lot of time and work in. When you don’t see the result, it gets to you.”
The results overall weren't bad for Smith. He set a single Big Ten Tournament record with 46 assists and the conference's all-time mark with 96.
Now, he's about to break the biggest assists record of all.
Hurley had 1,076 in 140 games for Duke from 1989-93 and helped the Blue Devils win back-to-back national championships alongside Grant Hill and Christian Laettner. Hill, incidentally, was at the United Center as an analyst for CBS. And it's fair to say he is impressed by Smith.
“It's just quite extraordinary, particularly in this day and age,” Hill said. “A player of that stature and that kind of accomplishment to stay four years, someone who's good enough to average eight assists or more over the last three years, they're typically not around long. He's someone who's incredibly talented, has all the accolades, has played in big moments, has been here for four years.
"Records were meant to be broken, and I'm thinking of maybe the 30, 40 misses that I had in college which may have extended Bobby's assist total, but nothing you can do about it now.”
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AP Sports Writer Jay Cohen contributed to this report.
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