GoldandBlack.com Saturday Simulcast: Purdue Senior Day Analysis & College Athletics Financial Crisis

On today’s show (March 7, 2026), we spend the hour with GoldandBlack.com basketball analyst Brian Neubert  Purdue’s Daniels School of Business Economist Dr. David Hummels. Neubert will discuss senior day and the legacy of Fletcher Loyer, Trey Kaufman-Renn and Braden Smith. The focus of the interview with Hummels is his recent three-part series on his “Finding Equilibrium” Substack that he shares with former Purdue provost Jay Akridge, on the economic and legal issues surrounding college athletics as a whole and Purdue specifically.

https://youtu.be/IFcmR7yjT-g

Audio only

Matt Painter discuss Mackey Arena finale | Purdue-Wisconsin preview

NORTHWESTERN TAKEAWAY–PURDUE”S TREY KAUFMAN-RENN’S GRAVITY

Obviously, C.J. Cox was the difference in the game with his 27 points and five three-pointers.

Give him all the credit in the world for this win — not only for making those shots, but also for playing a great floor game, scoring on a couple of pull-up jumpers and one critical putback, getting out in transition and doing a great job getting the ball inside when opportunities presented themselves.

But also understand that the reason Cox was standing in the corner doing jumping jacks all night was because of Northwestern’s fixation on Trey Kaufman-Renn in the lane.

Matt Painter credited Northwestern after the game for what he considered an excellent game plan, but it was a game plan that Cox wrecked.

By helping off Cox in the corner in order to station a defender at the elbow to bump Kaufman-Renn on his short rolls and dives to the basket, Northwestern basically dared C.J. Cox to beat them, and that’s precisely what happened.

These are the calculations college basketball coaches are making nowadays with these analytics-driven defenses and matchup-minded strategies: Who is most likely to beat you?

Northwestern bet on Kaufman-Renn in that regard and rolled snake eyes. Cox made all the shots, but Kaufman-Renn’s influence created them.

It speaks volumes that even though Kaufman-Renn hasn’t scored this season like he did last season, Big Ten coaches know damn well what he’s capable of and aren’t going to let it realize itself.

PURDUE NEEDED THIS, MAYBE JUST LIKE THIS

But perhaps it won this game in a much more valuable way than if it had just come in here, overwhelmed Northwestern and won going away.

Purdue having to rally from double digits down, overcome its own mistakes in the first half when it committed too many turnovers and respond to the bizarre go-ahead shot Northwestern made to beat the shot clock in the final minute — that is kind of what it means to overcome adversity.

And most coaches and athletes would tell you that when you do that, it is a much more valuable experience than the alternative.

Purdue is so old as a team that it shouldn’t need lessons at this stage of its journey together, but it is in a situation right now where it just needs to build positive momentum heading into the postseason. Perhaps the way it had to band together and win this game is a step in that direction.

ON BRADEN SMITH

Purdue star Braden Smith has not been playing his best basketball lately. That’s no secret.

And if you didn’t watch this game, you would look at 1-of-5 shooting and four turnovers with only seven points as kind of a similar outing.

That said, Smith deserves real credit for a couple of parts of this game that really helped Purdue win.

For one, Northwestern wanted this game played slow in the half court, but on a couple of occasions Smith created fast breaks where there weren’t fast breaks necessarily creating themselves. Purdue stole a number of points off of that, and Oscar Cluff did a hell of a job running the floor as well.

Further, if you just looked at the box score and didn’t watch the game, you might judge his scoring totals without the context that Northwestern trapped the ball out of his hands pretty much the entire game. For a player of his influence and ability to repeatedly make the right play, get the ball out of his hands when needed and allow his teammates to play with an advantage behind him speaks to a sound, controlled decision-maker.

He did tonight what Purdue needed him to do to win.

ON THE DEFENSE

Purdue did a better job defensively in the second half, though part of that had to do with the fact that it did a better job taking care of the basketball.

But give Purdue some credit for being good enough defensively.

Nick Martinelli is a real problem who is going to be killing people at the YMCA when his playing career is done after Northwestern. He was a handful for Purdue’s big guys throughout the game in switches and made a lot of tough shots.

Purdue moved Cox onto him late in the game, and that was a smart adjustment that worked for Purdue, though he was still a really tough cover for a guard.

The three-pointer Northwestern made was one of many tough shots it hit throughout the day. Northwestern’s offense is methodical, working deep into the clock to keep possessions low. When it makes tough threes or difficult drives to the basket and scores on possessions it might not otherwise have scored on, it is almost worth double points in effect.

Purdue isn’t where it needs to be on D, but give it some credit for being good enough defensively,then just getting out of the way and letting Northwestern choke it away at the very end with a couple of really hideous turnovers.

Getting big minutes from Cluff is a game-changer.