Purdue Boilermakers

Throughout the 2004-05 basketball season and into the summer, Schererville businessman Dave Harangody was convinced his son, Luke, was going to accept Matt Painter's offer to play at Purdue.

"I would have bet everything I owned Luke would have gone to Purdue," Dave Harangody said Thursday night after Central Catholic's victory against his son's Andrean team. "I knew that he liked Purdue, and I knew he really, really liked coach Painter.

"I actually was a bit surprised when he made the decision to go to Notre Dame. But we let Luke make his own decision, and we talked about everything he needed to consider in his decision."

The 6-foot-8, 240-pound Luke Harangody, who averaged 23 points and 12 rebounds as an Andrean junior, sliced a list of four schools -- Indiana and Ohio State were the others -- to Notre Dame and Purdue before picking the Irish late in the summer.

It was a frustrating end to a recruiting derby Painter wanted to win. In the end, Luke Harangody's decision had more to do with campus size than with basketball issues.

"There were a lot of aspects that go into a decision, but I felt more comfortable at Notre Dame," Luke Harangody said after compiling 28 points and 14 rebounds against CC.

"I definitely could have seen myself playing for coach Painter at Purdue. He is a great coach and just a great person. He is easy to relate to and is a player's coach. I think he will do well at Purdue."

But that bond was not enough to bring Harangody to a campus of more than 35,000 students.

"It was the size of the school," Dave Harangody said. "Luke is kind of a quiet guy who goes to a small Catholic high school. He felt comfortable in Notre Dame's smaller environment.

"There were a lot of factors, but that had a lot to do with it. A degree from Notre Dame had something to do with it. He developed relationships with Mike Brey and Matt Painter, and that was tough. It was pretty much a draw. The decision had very little to do with the basketball side of things."

RivalsHoops ranks Luke Harangody as the nation's 58th best high school senior and the nation's 14th-best power forward.

"It was a very difficult decision, because coach Painter and I really got tight during the course of my high school career," Luke Harangody said.

"Purdue ended up as my second choice, and it was real difficult to call him and tell him that I wasn't going to attend Purdue."

Dave Harangody, who played football at Indiana University, said Painter nurtured the relationship with his son.

"When it came down to it, that was the one thing that really bothered Luke," his father said. "It wasn't not choosing Purdue, but Luke was really concerned about how coach Painter would accept his decision. As a 17-year-old kid, it was hard."

Some Purdue fans think the decision was based on distance. Dave Harangody said travel had nothing to do with it.

In fact, it's 90 minutes from the Harangody home to the Purdue campus, and 90 minutes to the Notre Dame campus in South Bend.

Luke Harangody has watched several Purdue games this season. His father says Luke will continue to track Painter's teams.

"Every day when Luke sees Purdue struggling, he says, 'Man, I really feel sorry for coach Painter,' " Dave Harangody said. "There will be a bond with coach Painter for quite a while. Everyone in our family wishes Matt Painter the best of luck. What a class act."

Central Catholic coach Dave Barrett, who was Painter's teammate at Purdue in the late 1980s and early '90s, said Luke Harangody would have been an excellent get for the Boilermakers.

"We played behind him and in front of him ... tried to limit his touches," Barrett said. "He just killed us on the boards. He is so strong. He is a very good player".

Matt Kiefer said he doesn’t worry how many fans decide to show up at Mackey Arena.
He said it doesn’t bother him that people aren’t coming out to support the Purdue Boilermakers, a program he has devoted four years of his life to.
He said all he can do is play basketball and as that product gets increasingly better, fans will get increasingly more interested.
It hasn’t happened yet.
Through three games, Purdue’s home attendance has not been good. The Boilers (3-4) are averaging 10,094 fans in 14,123-capacity Mackey, but the single-game tallies seem generous: the upper level at Mackey has been sparsely populated thus far.
The season record-low for attendance average in Mackey’s 38-year history was 10,552 in 2002-03. Last season when Purdue finished 7-21, an average of only 11,681 fans turned out for home games. That’s the second-worst average at the arena.
In the last four seasons, including this season, Purdue is 46-50 and has advanced to only one NCAA Tournament.
“We haven’t had some good seasons the last couple years, so that’s probably the reason why,” said Kiefer, a senior forward. “The true fans are in the stands, and we appreciate all the ones that have come.”
Garnering more support – and victories – will be tough this season.
The Boilermakers have started four freshmen at times and lost their best player when Carl Landry decided to redshirt and miss the rest of the season.
The best shot at gaining momentum will begin tonight against New Orleans, a member of the Sun Belt Conference. Purdue has four more games until Big Ten play begins Jan. 4, and three of those would seem winnable. New Orleans, IPFW and Tennessee-Martin have combined for an 8-13 record. The toughest test will be a road game Dec. 30 at No. 5 Memphis (7-1).
Six Big Ten programs are ranked in the latest Associated Press poll, and Michigan was only four points shy of being in the Top 25. So expecting a boost in season ticket sales for 2006-07 may be a stretch.
Those numbers already took a hit this season. Purdue had 10,726 season-ticket holders in 2004-05 in Gene Keady’s 25th and final season as head coach, but that number dropped to 9,489 this season, athletic tickets manager George Ade said.
“Our job as a coaching staff is to get a very good product on the floor and get them to perform,” coach Matt Painter said. “(Fans are) going to get excited about us winning, so we’ve got to win. We’ve got to do our part first before we get upset.”
Ade, among others, hoped lifting the ban on bringing concessions to the stands at Mackey would encourage fans to come to games. Perhaps the change will take time to produce results. Al Chiscon, 72, is a retired biology professor who has been attending Purdue men’s basketball games for more than 30 years, said he likes the change.
“When you can eat at your seat, you don’t miss the game,” Chiscon said. “If you have to stand and watch on a TV monitor, you could have stayed home, where it is more comfortable.”

For a guy who fell into the coaching game by accident, Gene Keady and basketball have been a pretty good mix for almost 50 years.
Now, the Toronto Raptors are hoping that their new, 69-year-old assistant coach still has plenty of the spunk and tenacity that helped make him one of the most respected coaches in U.S. college basketball during his 25 years with the Purdue Boilermakers.
Keady’s good luck may have already rubbed off. On Dec. 17, in Toronto’s first game after Keady joined the team, the Raptors beat the Charlotte Bobcats 111-103, their fourth win in 21 NBA games this season.
“Basketball is basketball,” Keady said. “So if you block off and get back on defense and make your free throws, you might win a few games.”
That is precisely the idea the Raptors had in mind when they lured Keady out of retirement, where he was working on his golf game in Lafayette. He joins Jim Todd, Alex English and Jay Triano as assistants on the coaching staff of head coach Sam Mitchell.
Keady, who stepped down as the Boilermakers’ coach after last season, said he was looking for a challenge – and it doesn’t get much more challenging than the 2005-06 Raptors.
Basketball wasn’t even Keady’s chosen sport, although he played it until he was a junior in college. His passion was football and as a receiver at Kansas State he was talented enough to be drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL in 1958.
“If I could touch it, I could catch it,” Keady said, harkening back.
Back then, Keady said, the Steelers had some talent at quarterback, recalling the names of Len Dawson, Jack Kemp, Earl Morrell and Bobby Layne. And Keady, who was 22, was excited about the prospect of trying out for the team, a dream that died when he suffered a career-ending knee injury.
“It was just one of those things where I had a family to worry about,” he said. “I came home and started teaching.”
And he also started coaching basketball, at the high-school level in Beloit, Kan., spawning a career path that lasted 47 years at the secondary and college level.
As the no-nonsense coach at Purdue, Keady directed the Boilermakers to 512 victories, a school record that represented more than a third of the school’s 1,500 wins at the time of his departure. He led Purdue to six Big Ten titles and was chosen as the U.S. college coach of the year six times.
Keady said he hopes his energy will have a positive effect on the Raptors.
“That’s the way I’ve always been,” he said.
“You watch me on the bench, I smile a lot and raise hell with the referees. But I won’t be able to do that here because Sam will be mad at me.”
Keady is regarded as a defensive specialist, an area in dire need of repair with the Raptors. Toronto has allowed its opponents to connect on 49 percent of their shots from the field, the highest success rate in the NBA. The Raptors are also second last in opponents scoring, with an average of 103.6 points.
“Sam wants suggestions, another set of eyes and to teach,” Keady said of his role in Toronto. “I’m a teacher and I’ve always been a teacher, so hopefully I can help there.”
Keady has already taken rookie forward Joey Graham under his wing in the short time he has been with the team. The second-round Toronto draft choice said Keady reminds him of Eddie Sutton, his veteran coach at Oklahoma State.
“Hard-nosed guy, just like Coach Sutton,” Graham said. “He’ll get after his players to motivate them. When you do something wrong, he’ll let you know.”
One who does not need much motivation these days is power forward Chris Bosh, who continued his superb play in Charlotte, where he had a season best total of 30 points in the win, Toronto’s third in its past four games on the road.
In Toronto’s past five games, the 6-foot-10, 21-year-old has been virtually unstoppable, averaging 26.2 points on 45.2-percent shooting and hauling in 10.4 rebounds.
Bosh said he’s glad the Raptors made the move to bring in a veteran presence like Keady.
“He’s been coaching for a long time,” Bosh said. “I know it’s his first days (in Toronto), but it sure didn’t seem like it, because he was really voicing his opinion, saying what we could do better and pulling guys aside and reminding them about small things on defense and offense.
“You bring in a guy like that with a lot of credit in his career, it really doesn’t hurt – especially if he’s willing to help.”