Purdue Men’s Basketball Gets Second Commitment of the Day – Liam Murphy Commits

The Boilermakers have added two pieces to next year’s club.

After the news from this afternoon of prime target Omer Mayer committing you’d think that the Purdue men’s basketball news would slow down. Fortunately for us that was not the case. Purdue grabbed another top target this evening when Liam Murphy announced his commitment.

Murphy most recently played at North Florida and will be earning his Master’s Degree in Management shortly. Congrats to him on that. But, let’s talk about some stats and measurables shall we?

ESPN lists Murphy at 6’7” and 220 pounds. He will play the forward and that is a position of need now that Camden Heide has left via the transfer portal. Murphy spent two seasons at Columbia before spending last season at North Florida. Logically that would mean he has just one year of eligibility left, but the NCAA and eligibility seems to change just about every other day now so who knows but I wouldn’t bank on him having more than one year.

Now, looking at last season at North Florida, he shot an incredible 42% from three. Now, like me you might be asking yourself, how many attempts a game did he take though? It’s not as hard to shoot 42% if you take 1-2 threes a game. Not the case with Murphy. He averaged 7.7 attempts per game. That’s a high volume shooter to average 42%. Fletcher Loyer for comparison sake shot 44% on 4.7 attempts per game. So what Purdue has done here is added a second volume three point shooter who hits over 40% from three. And even better, you can play him and Loyer at the same time creating incredible spacing options for everyone on the floor. Imagine the looks that Braden Smith will be able to get both Murphy and Loyer as they space the floor.

If you take a look at various sportsbooks, you’ll see they have odds on who will win the 2026 NCAA Tournament. Just a few weeks ago Purdue was in the top 4-5 of those odds on most. Now, I just looked at one and Purdue is actually the favorite to win the national title, not make the Final Four, but to win the whole thing. Does this mean anything? Not particularly, but it means that Purdue will be a favorite to return to the Final Four, this time in Indianapolis, thanks to Coach Painter’s excelent use of the transfer portal. That’s now three players who have entered with all three players, Oscar Cluff, Omer Mayer, and Liam Murphy filling areas of need for the Boilermakers.

I know I’m excited, but don’t just take it from me, take it from Coach Painter himself.