WEST LAFAYETTE – With the Purdue basketball team comfortably leading Maryland by 25 points with 7:18 left in the game on Sunday, Liam Murphy took off his warm-up suit and walked to the scorer’s table at the Xfinity Center.
This is the fifth-year forward’s first appearance since December 29.
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In previous spells at Columbia and North Florida, Murphy proved to be one of college basketball’s deadliest shooters.
At the Boilermakers, he was caught up in a numbers game.
“You can’t play another guy out there, especially when you have a guy like Trey Kaufman-Lane logging his minutes,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said.
Murphy has been hampered as he recovers from shoulder surgery over the summer.
Jake Bent played out of position at four in his absence.
“In some cases, Jake is just playing as one of our big men because we want to have productive practices,” Painter said. “We saw the advantage it gave us. It just happened naturally and it wasn’t a break for (Murphy).”
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Kaufman-Lane missed the first two regular-season games with a hip injury. Bent started games against Evansville and Oakland.
Murphy played a total of 29 minutes in those two games before dislocating his shoulder, having surgery on the other shoulder later in practice and not playing again in nearly a month.
Meanwhile, Purdue found a rotation that worked, with Bent emerging as a backup option to Kauffman-Lane.
Murphy has played in just seven games since returning from a dislocated shoulder, all of which were decided by lopsided scores.
Before coming to Purdue University, Murphy scored 771 points and made 174 three-pointers in his career, including 104 three-pointers at North Florida last season, shooting 42.3% from the field.
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“This is something I didn’t necessarily encounter when I was playing in college,” Murphy said. “But I’ve played enough high-level basketball that all we want to do is win it all and we need everybody.”
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With playing time sparse and often non-existent, he’s been ready for when needed but has also turned his attention to other areas where he can help the Boilermakers.
He has mentored young players such as Bente, whose success is the reason why Murphy has not had playing time.
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“Liam went through some things in his college experience,” Bent said. “I felt like he was able to help me work through my issues and talk to me about his experiences, which I felt really helped me.”
The lack of playing time didn’t show through Murphy’s actions.
“Obviously, everyone wants to play, but he knows his role now and it shows that even if he can’t play, he’s going to be in the gym every day making shots and showing his work ethic,” Bent said. “He brings a good spirit to the team. He’s a great guy and he improves our team in a really good way.”
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After last season, Murphy entered the transfer portal. Within a week, Purdue reached out to help.
There were never any hard-hitting discussions about the role, just the opportunity to make the Boilermakers’ roster in hopes of surpassing the program’s performance two seasons ago when they lost to UConn in the national championship game.
Murphy didn’t need to hear anything more.
“In my last try at college basketball, I’m trying to make this program a little bit better, talk to the guys on the bench and talk about what we’re seeing during practices and after practices,” Murphy said. “I’m also blessed to be able to learn from these people.”
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Painter told everyone on the roster that they would help the team win at least one game. For Murphy, it came in the second game of the season, when he scored 11 points in an 87-77 victory over Oakland.
But, Painter said, you want this to be more than just a game.
“He’s ready,” Painter said. “It didn’t happen because we didn’t have a lot of foul trouble out there and we didn’t have a lot of injuries, but he’s a guy that you feel really, really comfortable with in the game and know he’s going to be able to stretch the defense and make some shots.”
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This article originally appeared in the Indianapolis Star: Liam Murphy Purdue basketball roster depth, shooter, leader, mentor
