College basketball season is still a couple months away, but Purdue men's basketball fans got some welcome offseason content on Monday when Field of 68 revealed its preseason top 25.
The Boilermakers rank No. 1 in the poll, assembled by college basketball insiders Rob Dauster and Jeff Goodman. 2025 national runners-up Houston comes in at No. 2, the reigning champion Florida Gators are ranked third, the 2023 and 2024 champion UConn Huskies are after them, and the Duke Blue Devils round out the top five.
It's something fun for Purdue fans to chew on as we approach a season that does not appear to have a clear preseason favorite. While the Boilermakers top Field of 68's rankings as well as those of ESPN's Jeff Borzello, St. John's is ranked atop Gary Parrish's Top 25 and 1 at CBS Sports and Houston has the top overall seed in Joe Lunardi's offseason bracketology. Duke, UConn and Florida are all clearly in the mix as well in each.
As for Purdue, Matt Painter's club will be led by preseason National Player of the Year candidate Braden Smith, who chose to return to school after three stellar seasons in West Lafayette. But this is about more than Smith. The Boilermakers are bringing back five of their top six scorers from last year's Sweet 16 team, including Trey Kaufman-Renn and Fletcher Loyer.
They also add a pair of top-tier transfers in Oscar Cluff from South Dakota State, who averaged better than 17 points per game last year, and North Florida's Liam Murphy.
While last year didn't go exactly as planned for Purdue, the Boilermakers won back-to-back Big Ten titles and were a 1 seed in back-to-back seasons the two years before that.
The rising senior class of Smith, Kaufman-Renn and Loyer is one of college basketball's winningest in recent memory. If they can add a national championship to their resume, then we can start discussing where they fall on all-time lists.
