PORTLAND — When Purdue plays top-seeded Connecticut in Glendale, Ariz., next week in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, Ryne Smith will be on the bench.
Not that he wouldn’t be. The freshman has been there all season.
His freshman season, out of Toledo, Ohio’s Whitmer High, hasn’t been along the same lines of a Derek Rose or even of teammate Robbie Hummel, but say this for Smith — his seat is much better than last year’s.
“Last year I was sitting at home watching it with my dad on the couch,” Smith said. “Now I’m sitting on the bench front row.”
Is is much different?
“Oh yeah,” he says.
Smith has played in 17 games this season, averaging 1.1 points per game on 28 percent shooting. He usually gets a little more than five minutes of playing time each game.
Smith talks about his season in the corner of Locker Room B in Portland’s Rose Garden Arena, a small room filled with a dozen media wielding recorders and cameras, none of which are for him.
The 6-foot-3, 175-pound guard started singing with the other bench players while he fixed himself one of the complimentary tacos.
He joked about the bench players’ superstitions during games, like sitting in the same four spots all season.
Every now and then, he answered the 15 or so text messages that awaited him when he returned from the game from friends and family.
“The stars probably have a lot more,” he says with a point of the finger toward Hummel and JeJuan Johnson, who scored 22 points for the Boilermakers.
Like his uniform, which still hadn’t been changed 25 minutes after the game, a smile never left his face. Can you blame him?
He said he got star-struck early in the season when Purdue played Duke, but doesn’t expect the same kind of feeling against UConn. After all, hasn’t Purdue proved their worthiness, knocking off Pac-10 champion Washington in an arena 175 miles from their Seattle campus?
“It has been an awesome freshman year,” Smith said. “I practice everyday with these guys. It’s really cool that the role players can get these guys ready like this.”
Hey Ryne, you’re not done yet — how is your Hasheem Thabeet impression?
