Trey Kaufman-Renn is enjoying an incredibly productive and efficient season in West Lafayette. Despite his massive strides on the basketball court, the Purdue junior forward was omitted from the top-10 list of finalists for both the Karl Malone Award and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award. His absence from those lists is befuddling to Boilermakers coach Matt Painter.
Kaufman-Renn put on a show on Friday night, leading No. 7 Purdue to a 90-72 victory over USC. The junior forward ended the night with 24 points, 10 rebounds, two blocks, an assists and a steal. He also finished the game without a turnover.
After another dominant performance from Kaufman-Renn, Painter was asked for his thoughts on the junior’s omission from those award lists. He didn’t hold back in his comments.
“It’s like anything, if you’re an English professor, you should be good at English, right?” Painter said. “It makes no sense. But you have non-basketball people making basketball decisions and they look at it differently.”
Kaufman-Renn has been one of the most efficient players in college basketball this season. He’s averaging 18.9 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists per contest. He’s also shooting at a 60.3% clip and has reached a double-digit scoring total in every game this season.
He’s putting up those numbers for a team that currently owns a 19-5 record and is 11-2 in the Big Ten, sitting atop the conference standings.
That, more than anything, is what bothers Painter.
“What’s he supposed to do? He’s the fifth- or sixth-most efficient player in college basketball right now. You can’t make up the numbers that he has,” Painter said. “But the thing I don’t grab is, whether it’s him or whether it’s Braden (Smith), how they can’t acknowledge it when you win big. Like, if you have big-time numbers and your team stinks, I got it. Or, your team wins all the time and your numbers are very modest.
“I just don’t understand when you win at a very, very high level and you have those numbers and you’re productive and you’re the fourth-, fifth-, sixth-most efficient player in the country — whatever that damn stat is. But, to each their own. That’s on them, really it’s on them. They’re showing that they don’t understand the game and what matters.”
Purdue went through this same issue last year with Braden Smith. Then a sophomore, Smith was left off the list of top-10 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award, presented to the top point guard in the country.
After Friday’s game, Smith also defended his teammate.
“I tweeted something out before the game, we’re back with this BS again, excuse my language,” he said. “We’re back with it again. You see what he’s doing and the numbers he’s putting up and what he’s doing to other people.
“I just find it unbelievable that he’s doing this every single night and they’re … you know, there’s no need to get into it.”
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