Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd mulls over a query throughout a press convention on the day earlier than his Wildcats face Purdue in an Elite Eight recreation in San Jose, Calif., March 27, 2026.
Outliers
The Boilermakers nonetheless have three starters who performed key roles in that 2023-24 recreation — and have been additionally round the earlier season.
That’s right: Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn have all performed for the similar college since their freshman seasons of 2022-23.
This is school basketball, in spite of everything, the place the switch portal guarantees instantaneous leverage for high gamers to get seven-figure offers the following season, making rosters flip throughout the nation each 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 query from the dais on the day earlier than their Elite Eight recreation towards Arizona in San Jose, Calif., March 27, 2026.
Smith indicated he views all of it in an even bigger image 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 stated. “I simply really feel like we’re all right here for one purpose, and that is to win basketball video games at a excessive degree. Obviously, with cash and issues, don’t get me improper, however there’s clearly temptations of, like, ‘OK, I might go get extra right here, right here or right here,’ however at the finish of the day, is that higher for us as opponents and other people?
“It reveals who you might be as an individual, too, that you simply’re prepared to go away an excellent scenario for one thing the place you do not even know what is going on to occur due to extra cash. What if you find yourself fully hating basketball due to how that have goes?
