New York bursts out, an hour or so away from Piscataway, brightly lit and crowded, filled up to the clouds with metal buildings and so many people below that just walking across the street can be daunting.

There’s a forced metaphor there, a day away from another ho hum Purdue win in December.

Basketball is often beautiful for the parallels we can draw between sport and life, or at least that’s what I tell myself, writing, writing, writing, searching for the next analogy to elicit something more than he dribble good or he shoot good.
Or in this case, I suppose, passes good.

That is the defining trait of Braden Smith’s basketball game. He passes good.

There’s a chance when his career is over, he’ll have passed the best in all of college basketball history.

Braden Smith sits at 862 assists in his career. He needs 62 more assists to break the all-time Big Ten record. It would not be surprising if he wears that crown by the time 2027 rolls around.

Smith is just 248 assists from Bobby Hurley’s all-time mark of 1,076.

But those are numbers in the way going from 9th Avenue up to W. 15th is how you get to Chelsea Market. I can Google Maps the directions and after a couple starts and stops end up in the market to put a pasteis de nata in my mouth.

The directions do not do justice for the amount of world moved through and the delicious bite awaiting you.

It’s easy to marvel at people from NYC, how they move, unbothered by all the hustle and bustle, the subways and crosswalks, in control of a city that seems too large, too fast, and it’s a little like that watching Braden Smith navigate a court full of players taller and bigger than him.

Smith’s highlight passes aren’t spectacular because of how difficult they look. They’re spectacular because of how easy and in control he makes them.

There are three Rutgers players keyed into Braden Smith on this play. Perhaps, likely even, they already know they’re doomed. In fact, what seems like an impossible pass was expected by those that have been paying attention the last four years as Braden Smith’s journey has gone from plucky day one freshman starter to best player in college basketball.

The thing about watching greatness is you start to expect it, and you can sense the note before it hits.

It’s New Jersey, not New York. That feels important because there was a time bad things happened when #1 Purdue came to Piscataway. They show the replay every time this game happens.

But this team, with this point guard, can’t be touched by history that it isn’t making. Smith started the game off by scoring, at will, warning shots to Rutgers that he wasn’t going to watch another Rutgers team knock off his Boilers.

Then, he went back to finding his teammates through chaos and poetry. Braden Smith’s ascension is rare for both its path and its longevity. Rutgers is rebuilding with youth, something Matt Painter and Purdue has seemed to perfect in the last half decade, but the trail is a precarious one.
Smith was a freshman once, alongside Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn. All of them could have jumped paths in the last four years for more: money, minutes, opportunities, prestige, etc…

“It works if you can keep em,” Matt Painter said bluntly when asked about Rutgers building through youth.

“If you can’t keep them, who cares,” Painter punctuating it like a prophet of dark omens.

For all the daunting impossibility of Smith’s career, his legacy, his penultimate achievement is this chase for greatness, a number higher than anyone else’s in college basketball history.

What lies beyond is the ultimate goal. A return to the title game and this time coming out on top.

The maestro of college basketball’s masterpiece won’t be a record, but a ring. If he gets it, it will be sweeter because he stayed.

Purdue’s win at Rutgers will most likely be forgotten at the end of the year. Good teams are supposed to beat bad teams, but on a night where Purdue was not its best, Smith was still brilliant.
It’s not just what Smith is doing in his senior season, but how.

Purdue will get back to Mackey Arena and the national spotlight on Saturday and Smith will get a chance to shine on the biggest stage again.