‘It would mean everything.’ Purdue eyes trip to Final Four in Indy

SAN JOSE, Calif. (WISH) — The Purdue Boilermakers are one win away from heading to the Final Four in their own backyard, Indianapolis.

The senior trio of Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer, and Trey Kaufman-Renn have been through just about everything as a unit, and all of them hail from the Hoosier state.

The three will do everything it takes to play inside Lucas Oil Stadium for the Final Four.

“It would mean everything,” Loyer said. “It would mean all the work I put in has paid off. You do so much to reach a certain point and that’s the mountaintop of college basketball and that’s what that would be. Our senior year, it’d be a great experience for us.”

Loyer holds the program record for most made three-pointers with 307 career threes. This season alone, Loyer has knocked down 110 threes, and he’s only the fourth Boilermaker in school history with 100 made three’s in a season.

But the engine of Purdue’s success comes from the Westfield, Indiana native, Smith. Smith is the NCAA all-time record holder in assists with 1,096. For Smith, getting back to the Final Four for the second time in his career would mean everything.

“It would be unbelievable,” Smith noted. “It would be two home games for us and for us to have that and that environment it would be unbelievable. But I mean at the end of the day, we have to get there. So for us, we understand what’s ahead of us, a...