Trey Kaufman-Renn takes five

Trey Kaufman-Renn looks like a new player at the start of the 2024 season. Gone are the long locks, replaced with a shorter, cleaner cut.

But past hair stylist choices, he's going to look different on the court as well. Last year, Trey Kaufman-Renn made a big change to his positioning, moving from a skilled center to a skilled power forward, playing next to two-time National Player of the Year Zach Edey.

Edey was the best big man in the last two decades in college basketball, but Matt Painter knew his team needed more offensive firepower. That meant putting the talented, unorthodox Kaufman-Renn next to Edey as another threat.

Kaufman-Renn made the most of an opportunity that didn't necessarily suit the best aspects of his game. He knocked down threes at 33%, just enough to be respected from the corner, and he had games where he shined, finding mismatches and taking advantage of them.

He scored 18 points against Utah State, dominating the Utes and allowing Purdue to rest Edey for longer than normal during stretches while building a lead in the NCAA Tournament second round game. He had 23 points against Illinois, one of Purdue's best conference wins, dominating the Fighting Illini from the jump, showing his ability to put up points in a flurry.

But Kaufman-Renn is the ultimate space eater, capable of dominating in the paint with vicious quick spins, surprising touch, and puts defenders in phone booths.

But playing next to Zach Edey had its drawbacks.

While the attention, success, and domination of Edey was a boon for Purdue basketball as a team and program, one player's job was made a little more difficult by sharing the painted space on a court with the 7-4 big man headed to the NBA this summer.

"I feel like every time I got the ball on the block, it was almost like a double team, right?" Kaufman-Renn said after first summer practice on Tuesday. "If I beat my man, there was another guy waiting there."

That's not a slight against Edey or PJ Thompson's offense. It's just the truth of having two dominant post players on the same team. There's only so much room around the basket and Edey was such a threat inside that his defenders were never willing to leave him.

It's a credit to Kaufman-Renn's game, and Edey's, that he was able to find any success in such tight parameters. It was a sacrifice, and the pay off now comes this season where he acknowledged that the five spot was now his again, a position that's much more natural to the big man.

Kaufman-Renn is a rhythm player, most are, but even more than most post players because he doesn't rely on just size or brute force. He plays face up or back to the basket, he moves, a lot, quickly, and then punishes with a heavy shoulder that allows him to dislodge from defenders or get them in bad angles. He likes to almost invert his foot work, getting a defender into what seems an okay angle to defend the rim before Kaufman-Renn pumps and gets between his defender and the rim.

There's not many big men in the country that get better looks more consistently. Kaufman-Renn just missed a lot of them last year.

He mentioned struggling with not having that rhythm, not knowing when the ball would go into him, and when it did, he always expected another defender to be lurking.

That shouldn't be as much of an issue this season with none of Purdue's other bigs with as natural an inside game as Kaufman-Renn's or Edeys. For the most part, all of Purdue's bigs now have some form of stretch to their game.

While the post will be Kaufman-Renn's, he did spend a good bit of his off-season working on his shot. Form shooting was a big emphasis in the off season as Purdue looks to play true five out at times with shooting at all positions as it transitions even more into a point guard led, pick and roll system around all its normal off ball actions and creative post touches.

Complexity and death at a thousand angles should be how Purdue's offense looks with all its length and shooting on the perimeter around Braden Smith this year.

But when Painter looks to go to his bread and butter, it will be Kaufman-Renn offering a steady supply of post offense.

Off the court, Kaufman-Renn looks to be embracing improvement and enjoyment more this season as well. He's moved locations, living closer to a dining hall that he mentioned had a good salad bar. He's looking forward to being able to make it to the dining halls more this year.

"It's fun interacting with the students," Kaufman-Renn said after being asked if he'd need to go in disguise. "I miss that. A lot of guys don't recognize that we don't get the typical college experience because we're so consumed with athletics so it's kinda cool to know the students."

With off-court improvements, on-court work, and a new look, Kaufman-Renn is poised to make a lot more people know who he is after this season away from Purdue.