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66 IllustrateD volume 24, issue 5 f "I just think it's my natural position," P.J. Thomp- son said. "All of what comes with the position — you have to be able to lead, to talk, and to have toughness — I think I have all of those things." And, ideally, a player must be driven. Such things matter at the position that often sets the tone for ev- eryone else. No issues there. It's the classic case, at least to some extent, of the undersized player whose edge has been sharpened by years of being overlooked or un- derestimated. "I was always under-rated, I felt like, maybe didn't get the credit I might have deserved, so you play with a little bit of a chip on your shoulder," P.J. Thompson said. "You go into every game thinking you're going to win, with something to prove. You might not always do it, but if you play that way all the time, it can give you an edge some other players might not have even if they're just as good as you or better." These past two seasons, there have been some very simple, fundamental things missing at Purdue, basic stuff like basketball IQ, chemistry, unselfishness and the like. In a moment of honesty, Boilermaker coaches would tell you that those deficiencies absolutely played a role in their decision to offer Thompson, who held more than a dozen mid-major-type offers before Painter and his staff green-lighted him. But Purdue didn't just take Thompson. It needs him. There will be opportunity. Purdue needs help at point guard. Chances are, Thompson will be ready. On the afternoon of the day he signed with Purdue, Thompson inked a fake letter-of-intent — he'd already submitted the real one — and mugged for cameras during an after-school signing ceremony. He skipped the cake. And good thing, because as soon as the ceremony was over, the group moved north to Zionsville, to a gym. There, LaSalle Thompson put his two sons — Isaiah is an eighth-grad- er — through an unforgiving workout. It was P.J. Thompson's first — or at least most gru- eling to that point — since being fully cleared in his recovery from the foot injury he played through in his final high school game weeks earlier, that night when it was just a matter of playing through pain, displaying the grit Purdue is looking forward to adding to its mix next season. Thompson describes himself this way: "Someone you can always rely on to get something done for your team. I'm always going to be tough. I'm always going to go out there and try to lead and give it 100 percent. I might not make all my shots every game or I might turn it over here and there or my man might beat me sometimes, but I'm always going to come into the game with confidence and try to give my teammates confidence that we can always win." Such things are what Painter started to see when he was the first college coach to recruit Thompson, back when he was in eighth grade, then coveted years later. "His makeup as a person and player is what attract- ed us to him from Day 1," Painter said. "… I just think that makeup kept bringing us back to him. He has a lot of winning qualities. He's tough, he's smart, he's a good communicator. He knows what's going on on the court. He can make threes, pull-up threes. He moves the basketball and that's what a point guard does. A point guard makes other people better and we think he's going to do that for us." j