Camden Heide certainly would have played a key role in Purdue basketball‘s quest for a national championship during the 2025-26 season, but he had been there and done that and sought something else.
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Heide, a sharpshooter who matured into a key rebounder for the Boilermakers, decided to enter the transfer portal after a Sweet 16 loss to Houston. A family legacy, Heide’s father Craig graduated from Lafayette Jeff in 1979 and Purdue in 1984. But he’ll trade his gold and black for burnt orange after he committed to Texas.
“I just kind of wanted a bigger role,” Heide told The Daily Texan. “I wanted to be more involved with the offense and kind of use my athleticism and skills to kind of be able to move forward in my progression as a player.”
Fair. Heide averaged 3.9 points and 2.6 rebounds across 75 career games at Purdue. And he shot it at a 41.2% clip from 3-point range, something of value in the transfer portal.
And there were limited minutes for Heide, who started eight games last season. He would again be playing behind All-Big Ten forward Trey Kaufman-Renn, the Boilers had added the nation’s leading rebounder in Oscar Cluff and a healthy 7-foot-4 Daniel Jacobsen would be returning.
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So, he landed at Texas with first-year coach Sean Miller. They built a relationship when Miller led Arizona and he recruited the Wayzata, Minnesota native. That stuck, and Miller landed a key piece to his first Longhorns team.
“My experience playing in a national championship is something that not many people get to say that they’ve done before,” Heide said. “I kind of know what it takes (to get there) … I think that it just kind of is something that I can kind of take with me and bring to this team.”
It led Purdue to fill that spot rather quickly, landing one of the top remaining shooters in the transfer portal in North Florida’s Liam Murphy. Though he knows he isn’t assuming Heide’s responsibilities as Raleigh Burgess and Jack Benter return to the fold.
But Murphy, a native of Staten Island, New York, leans into the championship aspirations.
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“I realize how special the roster I’m walking into is,” he previously told IndyStar. “It might be the best roster in college basketball. I also understand how much I put into this and how much I can play and how ready and competitive I am to get out there and compete and just grow.”
He began that competition, which was a theme of Purdue’s season-opening practice Wednesday as it begins its “national championship or bust” campaign.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why Camden Heide transferred from Purdue basketball to Texas
