Caleb Furst #1 of the Purdue Boilermakers dunks the ball (Photo by Darryl Oumi/Getty Images)
Purdue Boilermakers power forward/center Caleb Furst is certainly in consideration to be the most interesting man in college basketball.
He's the lone senior on the team that finished national runner-up last season, and he's been tasked with trying to help replace the production of back-to-back National Player of the Year Zach Edey. However, the most interesting thing about Furst is what his ambitions are for life after basketball.
Painter, who has the second most career Big Ten Coach of the Year awards, behind his mentor and predecessor Gene Keady, is right.
In this brave new world of NIL (Name, Image & Likeness) and the transfer portal, we've mostly lost the plot when it comes to the student portion of the phrase "student-athlete."
Not so with Furst, who is obviously putting academics first.
There were 23 NBA scouts, representing 21 different teams, in attendance for #13 Purdue's 87-78 win over the #2 Alabama Crimson Tide on Friday night. It is believed that this is the highest NBA team representation at a college basketball game in about 30 years.
We asked Furst if he's thinking about the NBA right now.
"I mean, here and there," he responded, in an exclusive conversation with RG. "I've applied to medical school and everything. So that's kind of my main goal for after I graduate, to hopefully go to medical school and be a doctor."
Furst, who would provide a unique bedside manor to all his potential patients given his 6'10", 235 lb. frame, was named Big Ten All-Academic Team last season.
He accomplished a 3.68 GPA while majoring in biomedical health services and playing a major role on a team that made the school's first Final Four since 1980 and won the Big Ten regular season title.
While the off-the-court time to prep for the MCAT examination will come later down the line, Furst discussed what he's working on right now, to try and become the team's breakout player this season.
"I think the main thing is trying to play with confidence to the best of my ability," he said. "Continue to work on offense and defense, finishing around the rim, and just kind of guard in multiple positions defensively."
Playing A Two-Way Game
At Purdue, the slogan/mantra is "Defense Lives Here," and Furst embodies that in his game. As the cliche says "defense travels" too, and you saw that in 2021, as Furst helped lead the USA U19 squad to the Gold Medal at the Basketball World Cup in Latvia.
And Furst has learned a lot from Edey, the two-time national player of the year, 2024 NCAA scoring champion and 9th overall pick in the NBA Draft. Edey, who is currently averaging double figures with the Memphis Grizzlies, really impressed Furst with dedicated commitment to his craft.
"His work ethic sticks out," said the 2021 Indiana Mr. Basketball and MaxPreps Honorable Mention All-American, one of 30 players nationally named to the list.
"The way that he worked hard each and every day. The way that he was so diligent about trusting what he knew he could do and using that to the best of his ability."
Josh Furst, Caleb's younger brother, is also a member of the Boilermakers squad, making the team as a walk-on. The two have grown accustomed to consistently winning together, on both the prep and collegiate levels.
Caleb won a state title at Blackhawk Christian HS, in 2019 and 2021, under legendary prep coach Marc Davidson, a former Illinois Fighting Illini guard that actually played against Painter (when he was at Purdue) in college. The Braves were among the favorites to win the state title again in 2020, before the postseason was canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Davidson tragically succumbed to kidney cancer, at the tender age of 49, in 2022. But his legacy lives on at Blackhawk Christian, where they claimed another state title in 2023, under new head coach Matt Roth.
Commitment To Excellence
Josh Furst led the way for that Braves championship team, averaging 19 points and seven rebounds per game. And those winning ways have carried over from Ft. Wayne to West Lafayette, with the Boilers recording 114 wins over the past four years. That's good for the third-most nationally in that span, behind only Houston (126) and Gonzaga (119).
In beating the Crimson Tide this weekend, Purdue’s 21-game home winning streak is now the fourth-longest active streak in the country. They have also won 25 straight games in the month of November. Without a doubt, this signature win will see them shoot up the national rankings.
Additionally, the Boilermakers finally got the March Madness monkey off their backs last season, achieving that long, deep run, after having endured a bevy of upsets to very low/double digit seeds in recent years.
He then went on to say what has worked for him and his teammates on both the squad, and the program level.
"I think it's just continuing to play the game of basketball the way that we play it," Furst added. "Obviously, we don't play it the same way that a lot of other teams do, when it comes to the amount of sets we run and how detailed not only our offense can be, but also our defensive principles can be, at times.
"Our coaches do a great job of kind of nailing that into our brains and ingraining that thought process. So, it kind of goes back to sticking with the fundamentals, and continuing to trust what got us to this point as a team, and as a program, and continue to do those things."
That commitment to the fundamentals, and maintaining that identity is exactly what the doctor ordered. It's a prescription for long-term success.
Paul M. Banks
