Lexington’s CJ Cox Helps Lead Purdue To Big 10 Championship
Plays with distinction at the NCAA Elite 8 basketball tournament
“We came up a little bit short, but we had a great season,” the former Lexington High standout guard said on the morning of the NCAA Final Four semifinals. His Purdue University men’s basketball team led Arizona by seven points at halftime of the West Regional final the previous Saturday, before the Wildcats rallied after intermission to advance to the Final Four.
Still, Cox and his Boilermakers emerged from a challenging Big Ten campaign to capture the conference tournament championship in Chicago, before winning three games in the NCAAs.
Purdue, which finished 30-9, was top ranked in the country for a period before each conference foe exhibited startling parody throughout January and February.
If Purdue had taken Arizona, there would’ve been three Big Ten teams in the Final Four. Six conference teams were among the Sweet Sixteen, when an all-Big Ten party in Indy was still possible.
“I feel like this year the Big Ten was the best in the country, with such depth and the amount of teams (nine) we sent to the NCAAs,” the 21-year-old Cox said just hours before appearing at a Wilson Basketball event, among the Final Four Fan Fest festivities at the Indiana Convention Center.
Of course, Purdue making the Final Four would’ve presented an exciting opportunity, playing before a somewhat home crowd in Lucas Oil Stadium, just about an hour’s drive from its campus in West Lafayette, Indiana.
In this age when major college basketball has transitioned into a landscape where players jump from school to school via the transfer portal for the best NIL (name, image, likeness) financial deal possible, Purdue’s program has been somewhat of a throwback, with the vast majority of its players continuing to return from the season before.
Among such returnees with such loyalty is Cox, who had remained faithful to his Middlesex Magic AAU program from fourth grade through his LHS days. Having completed his second season in the Boilermaker starting lineup, the 6-foot-3, 195-pound sophomore guard eyes finishing his college career as a four-year Purdue starter.
“If I wasn’t loyal to the Magic, I wouldn’t be here today,” said Cox, whose play caught the eye of Purdue coach Matt Painter during an AAU tournament in Las Vegas. “We had a bond and connection, and that’s why we were so successful.”
What Painter saw in Cox carried over to the Boilermakers, who were helpful in Cox’s transition to the major college game.
“The concept of team is having trust and chemistry, on and off the court, especially off the court,” said Cox, who its majoring in organizational leadership at Purdue. “And that leads to true bonding on the court.”
Always one for the team
Like his parents and older sister, Cecil Joseph Cox has been gifted with true athletic talent, and like them and through them, he has honed his skills through a tenacious work ethic.
CJ’s dad, Cecil, and mom, the late Lisa George-Cox, are both in the Lexington High School Athletic Hall of Fame. Lisa, a charter inductee, was an All-Scholastic sprinter who shone with Syracuse University’s inaugural women’s track teams.
Cecil was a two-sport standout at Harvard, as a captain and All-Ivy League defensive back and powerful right-hander on the mound.
Cecil and Lisa were proud products of the METCO voluntary busing program and shared the ride to Lexington each day throughout their grade-school years, Cecil from Dorchester, Lisa from Roxbury, and added to the stories of the organization’s success, in academics and athletics alike.
“She was a big inspiration to me, and still is; I also do it for her,” CJ said of his mom, who died in March 2021 after a 1-1/2-year battle with cancer. “She’s a reason why I’m here today; she also knew how to push me. I’m sure she’s smiling looking down on me.”
After the cross-country move to Lexington from the West Coast, when CJ was 3, older sister Alexandra Cox starred in track at Lexington High before heading to Elon University in North Carolina. Like her mom was Alex is an assistant track coach at LHS.
CJ and Cecil recently exchanged lighthearted pleasantries about the value of team play. Cecil’s two-way prowess helped spark Lexington High football to its first Middlesex League championship, in 1980.
“He reminds me that his focus is on achieving team championships, and beyond the 1980 Middlesex League title, my shelves are bare,” Cecil mused. “He punctuates the point with references to the LHS 2022 hoop title, Milton Academy’s 2023 NEPSAC title and this year’s Big Ten Tournament title. ‘No Glory, Just Wins, Dad.’ No argument there.”
CJ, who attended Bridge School and Clark Middle before heading to LHS, played two seasons amid COVID conditions for the Minutemen before considering a transfer to nearby Belmont Hill for the 2021-22 season.
“I wanted to stay one more year, and we won the league,” said CJ, who collected league MVP along with Boston Globe and Herald All-Scholastic honors. “Yet I’m proud I could help our program achieve something nice, the first league title in quite a while.”
“He’s quiet, and he led a lot by example,” LHS coach Reggie Hobbs said. “He was the hardest worker we had then, and he’s such a competitor.”
While CJ’s collection of individual milestones is modest, the winning has continued. After his junior year at LHS, he reclassified and played two seasons of prep ball under coach Lamar Reddicks, with the first year netting Milton Academy’s first NEPSAC crown.
Midwest awaits
CJ Cox had emerged as a three-star recruit for the 2024 class, definitely Division 1 worthy but maybe not headed for the ACC or SEC. His athletics and academics showed potential for the Ivy League, and Princeton, Penn and Yale expressed considerable interest.
But an even better fit awaited, for CJ and the Boilermakers. After Painter reached out to Reddicks following an AAU performance in Vegas, and Cecil and CJ took in a trip to West Lafayette, the Purdue coach delivered with a scholarship offer.
“I was actually recruiting another player, on the other team. CJ had like 25, 26 points, and I watched his demeanor,” said Painter, who coached his 2023-24 squad to the NCAA final. “I had only seen him once, and thought he was pretty good, but I didn’t know his people.”
Among Painter’s calls was one to Brad Stevens, the Boston Celtics’ director of basketball operations and former coach who had a son playing on the AAU circuit.
“He said, ‘Oh, he has big-time substance,’ ” Painter recalled. “ ‘Matt, I think he’d be a good fit.’ ”
Through watching video on Hudl and other social media platforms, Painter saw Cox was not a point guard or shooting guard but “another guard — he can do a little bit of everything.”
“It’s a great fit, with the philosophy Coach Painter has and the philosophy CJ has,” Hobbs said.
From the moment he met the players on his campus visit, CJ has felt comfortable with the Boilermakers. Just as with earlier teams, he saw teammates with similar concepts of loyalty to each other. Wearing No. 0 with ease, he worked his way into the rotation as a freshman and into the starting lineup by January of that campaign.
“That comes from all of us, and Coach (Painter) has that standard for us,” he said. “We’re the type of player he recruits. He doesn’t recruit players based on their ranking. Braden (Smith) was only a three-star recruit, like others.”
“CJ doesn’t talk, he just competes,” Painter said. “He’s no maintenance — he’s one who acts like an adult before you’re an adult.”
Purdue found a winning formula in its three-guard offense — Cox joining veterans Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer.
“CJ never supersedes what’s best for Purdue,” Painter added. “He has been the perfect fit for those two guys. He does those little things to help teams win.”
For the second straight All-America season, Smith was one of the most exciting players in the country. With Cousy-like efficiency, he passed former Duke star Bobby Hurley as the NCAA all-time assist leader, all while still driving hard to the hoop, jacking up clutch 3-pointers and wresting steals with his tenacious defense.
“When I first got to Purdue, I was guarding him a lot in our summer workouts,” CJ said. “Guarding him prepared me for guarding the best players we’d be playing. Seeing him making those passes, getting open for a 3 and being fed by Braden, I was honored to receive them.”
The team worked to deliver on goals of Big Ten regular-season and tournament championships and an NCAA title in Indiana, and did deliver on the Big Ten tourney, winning four games in four days by clamping down on defense.
As a No. 7 seed, Purdue capped its charge in Chicago with an 80-72 victory over regular-season champion Michigan — the eventual national champ. The Wolverines would’ve been Purdue’s foe in the Final Four semifinals.
Cox, who averaged 8.5 points for 2025-26, had a breakout game late in the regular season, before a Senior Night crowd at Northwestern. He poured in a career-high 27 points in an overtime victory, silencing the Wildcat faithful.
“When they prevented the pick-and-roll with Braden and TK (Trey Kaufman-Renn), that gave them the opportunity to kick it out to me,” said CJ, who drained 10 of 13 shots from the field that night, 5 of 8 from behind the 3-point arc.
Painter was quick to point out how Cox took care of the ball, that he committed only three turnovers in 496 minutes of 20 Big Ten Conference games this season. Overall, he had just 12 turnovers in 953 minutes, a figure that ranks seventh-best in NCAA history.
That also translates to one turnover every 80 minutes, the equivalent of two whole games, and one for every nine assists, tops among Big Ten starters.
“That’s unheard of,” Painter said. Cox’s extra individual ball-handling workouts as a youth at the Bowman School courts sure paid off.
“He’s a kid who’s committed and believes in himself,” Hobbs said. “He’s intentional about the work he does, and it’s amazing to see the success he’s having.”
Over Purdue’s four NCAA games, Cox averaged a shade under 10 points and 5 rebounds. The first two victories came in St. Louis, over Queens and Miami (Fla.), to advance to the Sweet Sixteen.
The West Regional semis and final were held in San Jose, in the same arena CJ’s former youth flag football QB, Lexington’s Will Smith, calls his NHL home with the Sharks. Cox collected 10 points and eight rebounds in a 79-77 win over Texas for a spot in the Elite Eight.
In the 79-64 regional final loss to Arizona, CJ had seven points and five boards.
For love of the game
In Indy on that April afternoon, Cox’s appearance at the Wilson Basketball function in conjunction with the Final Four was indeed part of a NIL deal, and the transfer portal was to start within the next three days.
But Lexington’s own, like most of his Purdue teammates, is thinking regroup for next year, in West Lafayette.“I feel like it’s more of a game,” Cox said. “I can’t see myself anywhere else. It’s not about the money.”