Purdue’s lone senior reflects on the final chapter to his Purdue career
The Purdue Boilermakers had just one senior on this years team in Caleb Furst. As strong of a start to a career as a true freshman has had at Purdue was fraught with uneven production and difficulty finding playing time during his sophomore and junior season behind Zach Edey. The final season was a bit of a swan song for the former Mr. Indiana Basketball from Fort Wayne Blackhawk and one whose success was largely responsible because of his insertion back into the starting lineup.
Furst doesn’t have the luxury of a fifth year Covid season and, to be honest, he wouldn’t be taking one anyway. Medical school awaits along with a wedding to former Purdue Volleyball player Maddie Chin in the near future. The always upbeat and positive Furst has seemingly always had it figured out about what he was going to be doing when his playing career was over. He just didn’t hope it would be this soon and it almost didn’t happen.
Purdue found themselves down 10 points late to one of the best teams in the country but clawed its’ way back to tie the game with just 29 seconds left. The Boilers had gone on a 14-5 run over the last 6:57 seconds until Houston executed a perfectly scouted baseline out of bounds play with less than 1 second left on the clock. It was that final bucket that gave the Cougars, a team that hasn’t lost in regulation since November, a two point victory and a date with Tennessee in the Elite 8.
Furst has long spoken about how basketball isn’t who he is and that it doesn’t define him but you could sense the emotion in the air in the locker room as the magnitude of what just happened start to hit him. Tears welled up in the often even-keeled Furst when he starts reflecting not on the loss but on what his four years at Purdue have meant to him.
Furst has been a model of everything college sports should be about and not what they have become. A top flight recruit who struggled in the middle of his career, only to find his way back into the starting lineup and be the catalyst for a Purdue season that seemed to be middling as it entered the B1G conference slate. When so many other players around the country would have bolted because it would have been the easy thing to do, Furst chose to do that hard work. Just like he has chosen to continue to do that hard work as he starts his life after basketball. He is going to be a surgeon one day and he is likely to become one of the best out there, just like he has become Purdue’s all time winningest player in program history.
That’s who Caleb Furst is. A winner. A guy who chose Purdue because of the culture and continued to build that culture over his four years. Purdue is going to be a wagon of a team next season on the backs of a senior class that is composed of Smith, TKR, and Loyer while getting back a key piece to the puzzle it missed this season in Daniel Jacobsen. There is also the possibility of major transfers coming in to bulk up an already impressive roster. That success next season is built on the work of Caleb Furst.