From Braden Smith to Rick Mount, Time to Retire Numbers
With the Big Ten Conference’s career assists record in his possession and Bobby Hurley’s NCAA standard seemingly reachable with a minimum of 19 games to play in his career, it’s time to recognize Braden Smith as one of the greatest to wear a Purdue basketball uniform.
Many Boilermaker fans already regard Smith as the best point guard in school history. But it’s time for the Purdue athletic administration to make a statement.
Purdue was understandably reluctant to retire a player’s number for many years when NCAA rules limited jersey numbers to 0-5, 10-15, 20-25, 30-35, 40-45 and 50-55. No one wants to be shoe-horned into a situation like the New York Yankees, whose 40-man roster has players wearing numbers ranging from 73 to 98 because the team has retired 22 uniform numbers.
But now that the NCAA has lifted that restriction – freshman Omer Mayer wears No. 17, while walk-ons Aaron Fine, Sam King and Jack Lusk don Nos. 6, 7 and 9 – there’s no more excuse not to honor Smith, Rick Mount, Glenn Robinson, Zach Edey, John Wooden and Terry Dischinger.
Let’s make the argument for those six Boilermakers.
3
Braden Smith
Put aside the 900 assists after Wednesday night’s home game against Washington, Smith has played a large role in another number.
Fifth-ranked Purdue’s 89-73 victory at Wisconsin was the senior class’ 100th in 124 career games. Smith and classmates Trey Kaufman-Renn and Fletcher Loyer, along with Edey, have been a part of a historical stretch of Boilermaker basketball. Since the start of the 2021-22 season, Purdue has been ranked No. 1 more than any team in the country (13 weeks). It is the first Big Ten school to be ranked No. 1 in the country in three straight seasons (2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24).
“He’s special, he’s elite. He passes better than anybody in college basketball,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said following the Wisconsin victory. “It’s amazing he didn’t have another high-major offer, because he’s a winner.”
Smith set the Purdue career assists record as a junior and is 177 shy of former Duke star Bobby Hurley’s total of 1,076. Thanks to the Braden Smith Assist Tracker (www.bradenassists.com), the Indiana Mr. Basketball from Westfield would have to average 9.31 assists per game if Purdue plays just its 17 remaining regular season games, 1 Big Ten Tournament game and 1 NCAA Tournament game. Smith was averaging a nation’s best 9.64 assists entering the Washington game. Playing two Big Ten Tournament games and three NCAA Tournament contests lowers that minimum average to 8.04.
“It’s a very historical league. You look back for a long, long time, there have been a lot of great players, a lot of great players at that position,” Painter said. “To break that record and still have 17 Big Ten games and the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament in front of you, it speaks volumes to what he’s been able to accomplish.”
A second Final Four in three seasons, a second consecutive Bob Cousy Award and a repeat of last season’s Big Ten Player of the Year Award would be the final argument in favor of ensuring no one again wears No. 3.
10
Rick Mount
Mount turned 79 this week, and even though he still looks like he could make a shot from 30 feet, time remains undefeated. The greatest scorer in Purdue history deserves to know that officially no one will wear his number again.
The relationship between Mount and Purdue hasn’t always been good, but Painter has played a big role in welcoming Mount back into the fold. Showing respect for his accomplishments no doubt played a part in the reconciliation.
Averaging 32.3 points a game over his three-year career (freshmen were not eligible in Mount’s era), Mount helped put Purdue in the national spotlight by leading the Boilermakers to the 1969 national championship game against UCLA and Lew Alcindor, now known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Mount was a two-time consensus All-American and led the Big Ten in scoring with a record 35.4 average. For some reason, he is not in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
13
John Wooden and Glenn Robinson
I used the New York Yankees reference earlier because they managed to retire the same number twice: the No. 8 of Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra.
The playing careers of Wooden and Robinson were separated by more than 60 years but their roles in putting Purdue in the national spotlight were similar.
Wooden was a three-time All-American and national player of the year in 1932, when Purdue was honored with a mythical national championship seven years before the birth of the NCAA Tournament. Wooden was the first man inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame twice, as a player in 1960 and for his coaching achievements at UCLA in 1973.
Purdue’s official athletic website declares that “Glenn Robinson dominated the competition like no other athlete in Purdue history.”
After sitting out his freshman season for academic reasons, Robinson led the Big Ten at 25.5 points per game as a sophomore.
His final season at Purdue was one to remember. He was the consensus national player of the year, including receiving the Wooden Award from Wooden. Robinson led the nation in scoring at 30.3 points per game. He is the only Big Ten player to score more than 1,000 points in a single season.
15
Zach Edey
From the 436th best player in the 2020 recruiting class to two-time National Player of the Year, the 7-4 center left Purdue after four seasons with a school record 2,516 points. He was the first player since Oscar Robertson in 1960 to lead the nation in scoring and make the Final Four.
Edey also was a two-time winner of the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award as the nation’s top center and the Pete Newell Award as the nation’s top post player.
43
Terry Dischinger
A worthy peer of Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Jerry Lucas and Walt Bellamy – all four in the Naismith Hall of Fame individually – Dischinger started alongside them on the first U.S. Olympic “Dream Team” in 1960. Dischinger is technically a Naismith Hall of Famer, since the 1960 gold medalists were elected as a team in 2010.
Lucas and West got to see Dischinger dominate the Big Ten first hand. From 1959 to 1962, the Terre Haute native averaged 28.3 points per game and a school record 13.7 rebounds per game. Dischinger also set the Purdue record with 713 made free throws.
A three-time first-team All-Big Ten selection like Wooden and Mount, Dischinger was a consensus first-team All-American as a junior and a senior. He went on to beat out John Havlicek for the 1963 NBA Rookie of the Year award.
Noteworthy
Here’s a statistic that bears watching. With senior center Oscar Cluff (12 points, 11 rebounds) and Smith (14 points, 12 assists) each recording double-doubles against Wisconsin, Purdue has had 15 double-doubles in its first 14 games. Last year’s team had 14 double-doubles in a 36-game season. …
Anyone worried who will step into Loyer’s shoes as the main 3-point threat in 2026-27 should have been heartened by Jack Benter’s recent stretch against Marquette, Auburn and Kent State.
The redshirt freshman was 6 of 6 from 3-point range against Kent State to match the school record held by Jaden Ivey against Butler in 2022 and Dakota Mathias vs. Fairfield in 2017. Benter was 10 of 10 from behind the arc over a three-game stretch that included Marquette (1 of 1) and then-No. 21 Auburn (3 of 3).
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.