Purdue's Braden Smith Named 2025 Big Ten Player of the Year

For a third straight year, the best player in the Big Ten resides in West Lafayette. On Tuesday, Purdue junior guard Braden Smith was named the Big Ten Player of the Year for the 2024-25 season. It's the third consecutive season in which a Boilermaker has received the honor, as Zach Edey won it in 2023 and 2024.

Smith concluded the regular season averaging 16.3 points, 8.8 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 2.3 steals per game. He helped Purdue to a 21-10 overall record and a 13-7 mark in Big Ten play, finishing in a tie for fourth place in the league standings.

In October, Smith was named the Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year.

Smith didn't just leave a strong impression on Purdue fans during the season. Michigan assistant Mike Boynton compared the junior guard to former Davidson star and current Golden State Warriors superstar Steph Curry.

"Braden Smith is the best point guard I've ever coached against not named Steph Curry," Boynton told Norlander.

Although he wasn't heavily recruited coming out of high school, Smith has started every game for Purdue during his three-year career. This season, he's accomplished a lot. He reached the 1,000-point club, grabbed his 500th career rebound and broke the program's all-time assist record, a mark that stood for nearly 50 years.

Following Purdue's season finale against Illinois, coach Matt Painter made the case for Smith to win the Big Ten Player of the Year award.

"He's been great. In my opinion, he's the best player in this league," Painter said Friday. "They call it the Most Valuable Player, right? He's pretty valuable. Who rebounds like him? Who gets assists like him? Who scores like him? Leads the league in steals or he's second in steals. He's pretty good. He's pretty good. For a guy who had one high-major offer, he's damn good. I think he'll play 10 years in the NBA. I think he's fabulous.

"He affects winning. We get away from that, we look at different things, but he affects winning on both ends of the court."

In his three seasons at Purdue, Smith is averaging 12.5 points, 6.8 assists, 4.9 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game. He's won two Big Ten regular season titles, a Big Ten Tournament championship and helped lead the Boilermakers to a National Championship Game appearance last season.

Smith becomes the sixth player in Purdue history to win the Big Ten Player of the Year award, joining Steve Scheffler (1990), Glenn Robinson (1994), JaJuan Johnson (2011), Caleb Swanigan (2017) and Edey (2023, 2024).

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