WEST LAFAYETTE — When Purdue men’s basketball’s frontcourt cleared out of Cardinal Court for the summer, Jack Benter moved into that vacancy. New Boilermakers big man Oscar Cluff had not yet arrived, waiting for his visa issues to clear in Australia. Returning big man Daniel Jacobsen was overseas, too, helping Team USA win gold at the FIBA Under-19 World Cup. Second-year big Raleigh Burgess and incoming North Florida transfer Liam Murphy were both recovering from surgery.
So Benter, who ran a lot of point during his stellar Brownstown Central career, spent a lot of time at the four spot. “I let the game come to me, so I don’t force anything,” Benter said. “I know how our system is so I just play within our system. I feel like it was honestly pretty easy to play the four.”
Benter did not come to Purdue expecting a future at power forward. Now it might be his best path to minutes this season. The work he put in to reshape his body during a redshirt freshman season — and the Boilers’ roster situation — puts him in position to help Murphy back up Trey Kaufman-Renn. If Purdue’s frontcourt spots seem full, the backcourt is even more stacked. In a perfect world — and perhaps in his Purdue future — Benter better fits as a conventional wing. Yet he has also played too well this offseason to stay buried behind a deep guard rotation.
“We just kind of put him there, and he naturally does some really good things,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “He can put the ball on the floor, he can shoot to 30 feet, he can really pass the basketball. He’s competitive. “So he’s put himself in a good position.”
Benter, runner-up in the 2024 Indiana Mr. Basketball race, came out of that summer’s annual All-Star series against Kentucky ready to contribute. He now wonders if he possibly picked something up that week. On his second day at Purdue, he started getting sick. A few days later, he was back home. Soon after that, he was at Schneck Medical Center in Seymour. That bout of pneumonia put him in the hospital for three days. A redshirt might have made sense for Benter anyway, but that illness brought the conversation to the forefront.
“I feel like, from there, I was behind a little bit, and it was tough for me to get into practice when I got back,” Benter said. “In the fall, it was pretty obvious that I was going to redshirt.“They did a good job communicating with me. I got extra work in, so it really paid off in the end.”
Benter and Jacobsen, at the time recovering from a fractured tibia, became part of director of strength and conditioning Jason Kabo’s road crew. After team dinners and shootarounds, they and the Boilermaker walk-ons hit the team hotel’s fitness center for extra workouts. After arriving at around 218 pounds summer of 2024, Benter’s pneumonia battle dropped him to 198. He worked all the way back up to 225 — even for a “big guard,” that was too big. He’s down in the 210-212 range now, yet stronger and more built than when he arrived. He needed that extra size for those summer battles with the 6-foot-9, 240-pound Kaufman-Renn. The All-Big Ten big man came away impressed.
“He’s gonna be ready — this year,” Kaufman-Renn said. “He’s playing against probably one of the most physical players in the country in me. Him doing that every day and watching him really put up a fight and really try hard … I’m excited to see him play.”
Kaufman-Renn could still occasionally play center. Maybe both other big men need a seat. Maybe Purdue needs to maximize its shooting efficiency for a stretch. Benter could then play alongside Kaufman-Renn. Painter will have a lot of options, and Benter helps set that up.
“I think Jack’s gonna have a really special year,” Jacobsen said. “I think a lot of people forgot about him since he had a redshirt, but he’s gonna surprise a lot of people. I know first hand how much work he’s put in — in the weight room, on his game, on his body.” Spending so much time in the frontcourt was never part of Benter’s long-term plan. Maximizing his minutes there has definitely become at least a short-term focus.