Had you seen Ryne Smith coming out high school, that scrawny 170-something-pound jump-shooter he came to Purdue as, you'd never ever, ever have known at that time that he'd leave school one day defined as much by his toughness and his marksmanship.
Smith leaves Purdue as one of its all-time most prolific three-point shooters. He's made 153 of them in what's amounted to about two-and-a-half seasons of playing time, with a bunch of games still to play. He just passed up 2,000-point scorer Troy Lewis on that list.
Even more impressively, he leaves Purdue as the first player in school history to take a fictional ball rack to the head and live to laugh about it.
But as impressive as those distinctions are, Smith will also leave as one of its great competitors, at least from the years that have marked this program's resurgence.
Some guys hate losing. Some guys hate losing. And still others would rather disembowel themselves than lose. That's probably a bit of an overstatement, but if you've ever seen the look on Smith's face after a loss, you know it's not that all that much of one.
If you've met Smith's father, Bruce, you know where that side of him came from. Passion is something that wouldn't seem to run in short supply in that household. NFL Sundays when the Packers are playing must be a real treat in that home.
Skills-wise, as a shooter, Smith is off the charts. In one of Stacy's videos, Smith credited Bruce Smith for taking two "very average" athletes - he and sister Nikki, who played at IU - and making them into Big Ten players.
Athletically, Smith may be the first to admit he's had no business being a very good defensive player in college. But he worked his way up to a point where he became pretty solid, a guy Purdue could count on to log huge minutes without worry.
Funny what want-to can do.
But it's been a process.
As a freshman, Smith didn't play, but didn't redshirt, either, racking Matt Painter with guilt to this day and guiding the coach's future decisions on such matters.
At that time, the Internet did what the Internet does and clamored for his scholarship back. Published reports more or less suggested he transfer.
That stuff takes a toll on kids, and in Smith's case, there's no question it's something that fueled him to make himself into the player he is now, an invaluable member of a couple very good teams and a pillar for a team that's only now finding itself this season in the face of an onslaught of adversity.
When Smith first started at Purdue, he knew his limited role well, sort of. His job was to take open shots, but no bad ones. That desire to do well dulled his shooter's instincts and the "swagger" that first attracted Painter to him.
"He put on just some shooting displays at a couple AAU tournaments that obviously caught everybody's eye," Painter said, recalling his recruitment of the Toledo native. "The thing that jumped out to me was that he believed in himself. He had a lot of swagger. He felt like every shot was going in and he ran around the court looking to pull up from anywhere. He was an unbelievably confident kid. There were a couple other kids (Purdue recruited that year) who've had good college careers, but I just thought Ryne was a better shooter and more confident and that's why we chose to offer him a scholarship."
You didn't see that early in Smith's college career. But once he came of age, the trigger finger got loose.
Today, Smith's the gunner Painter first saw at an AAU tournament in Cincinnati, while Smith was raining threes for his dad's Ohio Gators.
He may leave Purdue shooting, and making, more threes than any other player in the Big Ten this season. He's an eyelash behind John Shurna in both categories in a clash between a textbook jump shot form and comic book jump shot form.
But for as much of an impact as Smith's made from the perimeter, it's his spirit that, to me anyway, has stood out.
"He had that paper boy look to him when he was 17 years old," Painter said. "You don't realize there's a fighter inside."
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Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2012. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited. E-mail GoldandBlack.com/Boilers, Inc.
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