Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd mulls over a question during a press conference on the day before his Wildcats face Purdue in an Elite Eight game in San Jose, Calif., March 27, 2026.




Outliers

The Boilermakers still have three starters who played key roles in that 2023-24 game — and were also around the previous season.

That’s correct: Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn have all played for the same school since their freshman seasons of 2022-23.

This is college basketball, after all, where the transfer portal promises instant leverage for top players to get seven-figure deals the following season, making rosters flip all over the country every spring.

“I think you see some of the money some of the guys go get and you think, ‘Man, I’m a lot better than that guy. What could I be making?'” Loyer said. “But in the end, we get treated pretty well, and we got a team and a coach and a university that believes in us. A couple million dollars more sounds nice, but I think happiness is a lot better.”






Purdue head coach Matt Painter fields a question from the dais on the day before their Elite Eight game against Arizona in San Jose, Calif., March 27, 2026.




Smith indicated he views it all in a bigger picture sense, too.

“I think our values and morals are different than a lot of people, and I think we appreciate other things that people don’t,” Smith said. “I just feel like we’re all here for one reason, and that’s to win basketball games at a high level. Obviously, with money and things, don’t get me wrong, but there’s obviously temptations of, like, ‘OK, I could go get more here, here or here,’ but at the end of the day, is that better for us as competitors and people?

“It shows who you are as a person, too, that you’re willing to leave a good situation for something where you don’t even know what’s going to happen because of extra money. What if you end up entirely hating basketball because of how that experience goes?