Purdue basketball freshman C.J. Cox total package
Loss, Ivy League smarts, ‘unbelievable kid’: Purdue basketball freshman C.J. Cox total package
Indianapolis Star
- C.J. Cox usually works a step ahead: in his recruitment and skills. He had Ivy League offers but turned them down for a chance to play at Purdue.
- Boy, did it work out for the Boilermakers. Cox was unheralded out of high school, but starred at an AAU tournament that was just the beginning for Cox and the Boilermakers.
- Now, Cox gets to return close to home, roughly an hour away, to play in the NCAA Tournament near his second family, which helped him get through loss.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Before C.J. Cox became a Purdue basketball starter and one of the emergent hidden gems in the Big Ten Conference, he built a stoic, unflinching reputation on courts in New England.
At his prep school, Milton Academy, the mild-mannered Cox transformed into an in-your-face menace on the court. His Middlesex Magic summer teammates practically played hot potato at times so someone else had to bring the ball up against Cox.
“It went about the way you imagine it would,” Magic coach Michael Crotty said of being defended by Cox in practice. “He made people’s lives miserable.”
Cox arrived as the least-heralded member of Purdue‘s 2024 signing class. By the end of the summer, he seemed indispensable to the immediate potential of a team coming off a national championship game appearance. By midsaason, he joined the starting lineup.
This week he returns home. Providence, R.I., host city of the 4-seed Boilermakers’ opening-round game against 13-seed High Point, is a one-hour car ride from Cox’s hometown of Lexington, Mass. Everything about Cox’s story traces back to his roots and a poise uncommon for his age and inexperience. He acquired it the hard way — excelling without attention, even stepping out of the spotlight at times in search of a tougher challenge.
He also acquired it in heartbreaking ways, watching his mother, Lisa, die from cancer before his prospect status took flight. Basketball provided a refuge from the grief — and an extended family to help him cope.
For most of his high school career, Cox imagined his March Madness moment coming via one of New England’s Ivy League programs. Many high-major coaches saw Cox play at some point. Until Matt Painter came along, none offered him a scholarship.
Purdue’s coach understands how that happened. He once would have made the same mistake.
From a game-changing shooting performance against Alabama to draining five 3-pointers in a rout of Nebraska to a tone-setting defensive effort in a rout of Michigan, the moment never looked too big. Now come the biggest moments yet. Purdue often asks Cox to guard its opponent’s best non-post scorer. When opponents scheme to deny Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn, Cox could be squaring up the shot which keeps a season alive.
Few expected Cox to be in this position this quickly at this level. Those who knew him best back home — the ones who pegged him as a perfect Purdue fit as soon as Painter showed interest — expected the same measures of confidence and skill he’s shown at every other level.
“He’s an unbelievable kid,” Purdue assistant P.J. Thompson said. “I don’t think he even knows how good he can be.”
How C.J. Cox developed into a complete player
Cecil Cox trusts his son’s instincts.
When first visiting potential AAU programs near their home, he acknowledged his son’s analysis. Since he was only 9 years old, those breakdowns resembled a “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” process, Cecil Cox said. One program’s coach yelled too much. Another seemed more concerned with winning than helping players improve their dribbling.
After Cox grew into a star at Lexington High School came another leap of faith. He swapped out lead guard and 20-point-per-game scorer status at his parents’ alma mater to become the sixth man at Milton Academy prep school.
So when his son told him he wanted to set aside scholarship offers from Ivy League programs — some of whom began pushing him for an answer — to roll the dice on the only high-major program to show interest, how could dad balk?
“He’s a real simple kind of black-and-white, straight-ahead guy,” Cecil Cox said. “He knows what internally motivates him. He just has an instinct for things.”
Cecil Cox grew up in Dorchester, Mass. Lisa grew up in Roxbury. They met in high school thanks to the region’s busing initiative. After their college careers — Cecil played football and baseball at Harvard, Lisa starred as a Syracuse track sprinter — they returned home, reconnected and fell in love.
Harvard inducted Cecil, an FCS All-American and two-time All-Ivy selection, into its Varsity Club Hall of Fame last season. Lisa was a Big East All-Star at Syracuse and an inaugural member of the Lexington High School Hall of Fame. Their oldest child, daughter Alex, ran track at Elon University.
Mom and dad weren’t always sure their son would continue the lineage.
The talent showed through, though, soon after joining the Middlesex Magic. The program’s alums include Notre Dame’s Pat Connaughton and Michigan’s Duncan Robinson — both currently in the NBA. Crotty remembers a “sneaky star” who could not be flustered. He simply hit big shots, defended relentlessly and made correct decisions over and over.
“His ability to transform his mentality and instinct into physical toughness — that sets him apart,” Crotty said.
Cox’s parents always kept open the option of a post-graduate year when he completed his Lexington High career. Instead, he reclassified to the 2024 class and enrolled at Milton, a boarding school located on the opposite end of Boston. Cecil Cox noticed a “quantum leap” as his son honed his game against higher-end competition.
Milton coach Lamar Reddicks, a former Harvard and Boston University assistant, said some questioned Cox’s fit at Purdue. He never did.
“He’s got just a strictly ‘I am here to compete’ mentality 24/7,” Reddicks said.
“His instincts are so on point all the time. Combine that with some natural athleticism and the mentality to compete, you’ve got a pretty complete player.”
In his final summer with the Magic, Cox finally reached the level of offensive aggression that staff had coxed him toward for years. Crotty called it a “life-changing” development.
Boy was it ever.
Why C.J. Cox turned down Ivy League offers for Purdue basketball
Painter went to Las Vegas LIVE — the final event of Under Armor’s 2023 summer circuit — to watch longtime recruiting target Travis Perry. The Kentucky point guard’s recruiting experience contrasted sharply with Cox’s. Consensus four-star and top-100 rankings. Offers from dozens of top-shelf programs.
Needing a talented point guard for his 2024 signing class, Painter offered Perry in June 2022. Perry took an unofficial visit that September. Took an official visit a year later. With the recruitment dragging into fall 2023, he still had not pulled the trigger on a commitment.
That day in Las Vegas, Painter found a potential Plan B.
Cox effortlessly splashed a corner 3, then a deep one from one elbow, then another from the other elbow after crossing up his defender. With the Magic down eight midway through the fourth quarter, Cox drained a turnaround jumper in the lane. On the next trip down, he pulled up and sank an 18-footer.
With 90 seconds left, his off-balance 3 made it a one-possession game. Another with one second left from almost the same spot at the top of the key sent the game to overtime.
Cox’s shooting heroics ran out in the extra period, though. Indiana Elite went inside to one of its own standouts — Kokomo’s Mr. Basketball, Flory Bidunga — for a go-ahead and-one and a 72-70 victory.
That performance awakened Painter to Cox the basketball player. The postgame scene — one which so intrigued Painter he asked everyone around Cox about it for months — revealed Cox the man.
Other Magic players convened around Cox — hugging, laughing, crying. A team that won an Under Armor championship earlier in the summer seemed to be holding an even bigger celebration for a consolation bracket loss.
“I was like, ‘What the hell are we hugging somebody for after an AAU game on July 27?'” Painter said earlier this season.
Painter asked that question, and many more, while calling around the country about Cox. One contact was former Butler and Celtics coach Brad Stevens. He passed Painter off to his son, Brady, who had played with Cox with the Magic the year before. The reviews of Cox the person came back stronger than reviews of Cox the player.
Soon after Cox returned from a visit to Princeton in September 2023, he received a call from Crotty. Painter wanted to talk. The conversation led to an invitation for an official visit — the precursor for a likely scholarship offer.
Now came Cox’s leap of faith. He held scholarship offers from multiple Ivy League programs. He knew how highly his father regarded institutions such as Princeton and Penn, Cox’s other finalist.
He asked permission to set those aside and visit Purdue.
“Let me get this straight — you don’t have an offer?” Cecil asked his son.
“No sir,” Cox responded.
Cecil, again, trusted his son’s instincts — to a point. He had not accompanied his son on his previous official visits. However, he knew more about Purdue’s reputation as a great engineering school than their basketball program. He needed to see things for himself.
About halfway through the visit, he went back to the Purdue Memorial Union and did some work. He had quickly recognized why his son responded to Painter. He didn’t need the full tour to put his mind at ease.
On Oct. 1, 2023, Cox received — and accepted — what held up as his only high-major offer.
Painter took some exception early this season to a question implying Cox had fallen into his lap. He retold the story of that Vegas epiphany and the legwork the recruitment required.
However, he also admits he would not have signed Cox earlier in his career. He too would have second guessed whether a player with essentially no major conference recruiting exposure really belonged at the Big Ten level. He could have been as guilty of overthinking Cox’s potential as everyone else.
“It’s like, why won’t he be successful?” Painter said. “It’s kind of like being devil’s advocate, right? What jumps out to you? He’s quick. He can handle the basketball. He can make a pull-up. He can make a 3. He’s a good student. He’s a good person. He’s competitive, practices hard.
“When you go and look at everything, how isn’t that going to translate? Well, it’s going to translate.”
Purdue guard Fletcher Loyer said he knew less about Cox than the typical incoming prospect. The few highlight videos he watched could not convey the full breadth of Cox’s game.
Cox, though, never looked out of place once he stepped onto Cardinal Court last summer. In some ways, especially with his defensive acumen, his game exceeded that of most freshmen.
“You hear you get a guard, you watch a couple of his highlights, and then you just trust coach that he knows what he’s talking about,” Loyer said. “But then as soon as you get here in the summer and they start working out and playing open gym, you just saw how much skill C..J. and Gicarri (Harris) both have. So when they’re going at me and Braden, and we’re going back at them, then you have a good team, because there’s that competitiveness and that drive there.”
While that chance encounter in Vegas began Painter’s relationship with Cox, it ended Cox’s association with what had become a second family. It’s the other side of that moment, which had little to do with basketball. Those Magic teammates — including some prep school teammates — helped Cox through his greatest challenge.
Why basketball is important to C.J. Cox
Cecil Cox decided to wait until his son woke up to deliver the news.
On the morning of March 9, 2021, a father told his son his mother died overnight. A beloved educator and coach in her hometown of Lexington, Lisa Cox battled sarcoma for 18 months. Several months before her death, the Massachusetts State Track Coaches Association recognized her with the Bill O’Connor Courage and Humanitarian Award for her continued work with the Minuteman track program following her diagnosis.
After sharing a few minutes of grief with his son, Cecil Cox let him have his space. When he went back upstairs to check on him a few hours later, he found his son at his computer, participating in his remote classroom. He said that’s where his mother would have wanted him to be.
Basketball, for a while, became a refuge.
“At first it was tough — just having to deal with that loss,” C.J. said. “But I knew that she wouldn’t want me to quit on basketball and just not try, but to push myself to become better.”
Cox’s basketball communities also rallied around him. Cecil Cox remembers other players’ parents coming forward to share their own stories of loss, letting his son know his experience was not an isolated one. Others might simply offer a few words of encouragement and a hug and head back to the bleachers.
Even three-plus years since Lisa Cox’s death, those emotional connections colored the scene Painter witnessed in Las Vegas.
“He had the benefit of retaining a lot of those relationships — guys he came up with, developed with,” Cecil Cox said.
“Playing basketball allows him the escape. It has more to do with being around a community of players and family who knew him and understood him completely as a quiet kid and what they needed to do to support him.”
Purdue freshman C.J. Cox has ‘a high level of substance’
Cox emerged from the preseason certain he could not continue the status quo. He had to do something about his hair.
He showed up for freshman year with a sprawling, bushy head of hair. Eventually he grew annoyed with how frequently it got in his eyes during practice. He didn’t want to cut it, so he opted for braids. Assistant coach Brandon Brantley connected him with a friend of his wife’s. A new look was born — one requiring additional maintenance.
“Keeping them fresh and not frizzy is important,” Cox said.
In every other way, the Cox who put on a Purdue uniform looks exactly like the one Painter believed he had found.
Thompson does not remember how soon Painter told him about Cox after that Las Vegas event. He definitely remembers which comparison the coach gave to his former player turned assistant.
“I remember him calling me and saying C.J. reminded him of me,” Thompson said. “And you know, I can see it.”
Thompson also slid under the radar as a recruit, settling outside the 247Sports composite top 300 for the 2014 class. He held no high-major offers out of Brebeuf before Painter’s offer. He committed even later than Cox, accepting his scholarship in April of his senior year.
Then he played regular minutes as a freshman, started most of the season as a sophomore and every game as a junior and senior. He helped Purdue win a Big Ten championship and reach a pair of Sweet 16s. He ran the point, jammed the opposing point full-court on defense and shot over 40% from 3 in each of his final three seasons.
Painter encapsulated Thompson with one phrase: “A high level of substance.” Unselfish, smart, dependable — and lethal from the perimeter when needed. Thompson now coordinates Purdue’s offense. When he first saw Cox in person, that last attribute seized his attention.
“The first thing I noticed was, I don’t know what position he is, but he has a knack for putting the ball in the basket,” said Thompson.
Cox enters the NCAA Tournament averaging 5.9 points per game — a distant fourth among the Boilermaker regulars. He tends to pick his moments, though.
- Purdue trailed its highly anticipated Nov. 5 home game against then-No. 2 Alabama midway through the second half. Cox hit the go-ahead 3 with 9:13 to play, then another 17 seconds later, then another 35 seconds after that. Alabama coach Nate Oats said Cox was on the scouting report as a shooter, but “we didn’t anticipate him being thatgood.”
- He approached his first double-double with 12 points and eight rebounds in a comfortable 79-61 home victory over Northwestern on Jan. 5. A week later came his peak performance, knocking down five 3-pointers and scoring a career-high 23 points in a 104-68 thumping of Nebraska.
- Of his nine double-digit scoring games this season, six came against teams who made the NCAA Tournament field. His confidence inside the arc grew as the season progressed. His 2-point field goal percentage in Big Ten games ranked 11th, and his offensive rating ranked 13th per KenPom.
“I’ve seen it all summer,” Smith said of looking for Cox on the break earlier this season. “I had to guard him, so I know what he’s capable of.”
Yet asked to choose which side of the ball he’s most satisfied with for his freshman performance, Cox chose defense.
During a summer workout, Purdue ran a take it/make it style drill in halfcourt offense. Cox drew the defensive assignment on Smith — who played on the same squad as fellow returning starters Kaufman-Renn and Loyer.
That group kept running plays for Smith to get open off of ball screens. Over and over — at least five times in a row per Cox’s memory — Smith made the same drives and fadeaway jumpers he makes all over the Big Ten.
Cox said he did not encounter much ball screen action prior to arriving at Purdue. Then he spent the summer facing off against perhaps the best ball screen guard in the country.
That crash course prepped him for the role he eventually assumed this season. He opened the game against Illinois point guard Kasparas Jakucionis, a freshman who came in with a four-star, top-50 national reputation and lived up to it this season.
Jakucionis did not attempt his first shot until the game was 12 minutes old. Did not make his first field goal until only 2:29 remained in the first half.
“If they can’t score, they can’t win,” Cox remembers a coach telling him once. It was his father, preaching that message to a group of kids in Lexington.
That mindset took Cox a long way in basketball — all the way back home for his first NCAA Tournament. He plans to use it to help Purdue’s journey continue.