WEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA \u2014 Well, it\u2019s official. <\/p>\n
Right now, Purdue University\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team, which includes West Brighton resident Liam Murphy, is the nation\u2019s preseason No. 1.<\/p>\n
Many off-season polls had the Boilermakers as the top-ranked team, but the Associated Press made it official Monday after announcing the Big Ten powerhouse was sitting atop its pre-season rankings.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first time Purdue has been ranked No. 1 prior to the start of the season. <\/p>\n
The Boilermakers received 35 of 61 first-place votes for the 2025-26 top spot. Head coach Matt Painter\u2019s troops beat out Houston and defending National Champion Florida, who are currently right behind Purdue at No. 2 and 3, respectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are obviously excited to get the season going and being ranked No. 1 in the preseason is a great indicator of what we feel this team can accomplish,\u2019’ Painter told the AP. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut the goal is to be No. 1 at the end of the year,\u2019’ added Painter, who is a Purdue alum. \u201cWe\u2019re thrilled that people think this highly of our team, but there is a long ways to go and a lot of work to do to reach that goal in April.\u201d<\/p>\n
Previously, the Boilermakers preseason high was No. 2 under legendary head coach Gene Keady prior to the 1987-88 season.<\/p>\n
The Boilermakers reached the Sweet 16 last season, one year after advancing to the National Championship game.<\/p>\n
In addition to returning highly touted players like Braden Smith, Trey Kaufman-Renn and Fletcher Loyer, the Boilermakers have the 6-foot-8 Murphy \u2014 a former Jaques Award winner and St. Peter\u2019s product \u2014 on its roster.<\/p>\n
The Advance\/SILive.com has been following Murphy in a series called \u201cMurph\u2019s March to Madness\u201d since he announced he\u2019d be transferring to Purdue last April.<\/p>\n
For a look at why Staten Island should be excited about Murphy attending Purdue, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA \u2014 Well, it\u2019s official. Right now, Purdue University\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team, which includes West Brighton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-1216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}