Braden Smith Wins Cousy Award

Smith becomes the third Boilermaker to win an individual award

Braden Smith has been announced as the 2025 winner of the Bob Cousy Award. Smith, who became the Purdue Boilermaker’s all time assist leader while also being named the B1G Player of the Year, a Consensus First Team All American, and a finalist for the National Player of the Year Award, had one of the best seasons in NCAA history for a point guard. Averaging 15.8 points, 8.7 assists, 4.5 rebounds, and 2.2 steals per game, Smith is only the second player in NCAA history to record at least 550 points, 300 assists, and 150 rebounds joining only Murray State’s Ja Morant in 2018-2019. Smith also became only the second player in B1G history, joining just Magic Johnson, to register 450 points, 250 assists, 125 rebounds, and 60 steals in a single season. That’s a feat Smith has achieved each of the last two seasons.

Smith continued his fantastic season in the NCAA Tourney where he led the Boilers to the Sweet 16. In that matchup with Houston, Smith became the first player to ever record two games of 15 or more assists. Those 30 assists contribute to the opportunity that Smith has to become the all time NCAA leader in assists as he currently sits at 758 total. That places him currently 79th and just 318 behind current leader Bobby Hurley (Duke), Smith had 313 total this past season.

With Smith’s award, he joins Zach Edey (two time Kareem Abdul-Jabaar) and Carson Edwards (Jerry West) as individual award winners. Purdue is tied with only Duke and Gonzaga to have four combined award winners and behind only Villanova, who has 5. The Boilers also join only Gonzaga, Duke, and Kentucky as the only schools to have three different players with their positional awards (side note: Had Caleb Swanigan been named the Karl Malone award winner, Purdue would have another winner. He inexplicably lost that award to Baylor’s Jonathan Motley).