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46 ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 2 f the movie 'Major League' twice on the bus ride home," said Brandon Brantley, now an assistant men's basket- ball coach on Purdue's staff. "He said, 'No head phones. You guys watch.' And we did, whether we liked it or not." Actor Charlie Sheen's antics as relief pitcher Ricky Vaughn aside, the movie portrayed an underdog team winning big, and that was always the goal of the 1994-95 Boilermakers. Brantley, a junior forward that season, credited the team's leadership and espe- cially recalls how vocal Martin could be in the locker room. "You didn't want to come to the locker room if you didn't do the right thing on the court," Brantley said of Martin. "He was our Larry Bird or Mag- ic Johnson in terms of being competitive, and he made everyone around him that much better." Keady knew he had a special group with a collective warrior mentality. But he also knew he had to find the right combination and keep everybody moving in the right direction. Prior to the Iowa loss, Keady shook up the line- up, replacing Brantley and junior college newcomer Roy Hairston in the starting lineup with Jennings and fresh- man Brad Miller. "It was a great move by coach to put Brad in with those veteran guys so he could gain confidence," Martin said. "We had some heat off the bench and it helped Brad grow as a player." It was a tough moment for Hairston, who was just get- ting accustomed to Purdue after life at Hutchison JC. "It was the thing that really turned it for us," said Hair- ston, who lives and works in Indianapolis and still aspires toward a major college-coaching gig. "I did not like being on the bench and not starting, but I accepted it. It was for the greater good. We started to roll and sometimes you need to shake things up, so you accept your role and sup- port your team." Hairston knew a thing or two about winning, having been part of a JUCO national title team the year before. "It was not about the flash, it was about the work," Hair- ston said. "We outworked a lot of teams. We all were hard- nosed, really good defenders. We did not turn the ball over much and we shot the ball well. And if you do all those things, it is very hard to beat a team that does that." This was a team that im- proved by having daily bat- tles in practice. Sometime, it wasn't always so friendly, or for that matter, very civilized. Yet, leadership comes in all shapes and sizes, and Waddell and Martin and fellow captain Tim Ervin, a walk-on, made it all work. "We left practice with blood on our shirts from time to time," Foster said. "Cuonzo was the instigator of lots of the competitiveness. If we had a fight on the court, I can guarantee you 'Zo had something to do with it. "With Matt, he would honk me off because he would do sneaky things just to win drills in practice. He was a schemer. I mean, he wanted to win drills. That was how competitive he was, but it was definitely in a quiet way. With six juniors to go along with the seniors, we had enough experience to manage the ultra-competitive envi- ronment." Michigan State was the conference favorite, partly due to the sentimentality of it being Jud Heathcote's swan- song season as coach. Yet, in one of the most impressive wins of the Keady Era, the Boilermakers upended No. 7 Michigan State at the Breslin Center when they came up big in the final three minutes of the game en route to a 78-69 win. "The win at Michigan State took us to the next level in terms of confidence," Martin said. "We knew defensively we were as good as anyone. Still we had to keep winning Purdue Martin and Waddell acknowledge the adoring Mackey Arena crowd moments after the Boilermakers claimed the Big Ten title in a Senior Day win over Michigan.