Gold and Black is a multi-platform media company that covers Purdue athletics like no one else.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/438308
20 ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 3 f M E N ' S B A S K E T B A L L F E A T U R E : J O N O C T E U S 'Pretty Much Perfect' Late addition fitting in well BY STACY CLARDIE SClardie@GoldandBlack.com J on Octeus follows the scouting report. He does what Purdue's coaches tell him. He practices hard, puts in extra time and gives consis- tent effort during games. He rarely turns the ball over. He likes to play defense, sees it as a point of pride to force a five-second violation and a turnover. He loves to rebound, and he crashes the offensive glass with abandon. "He does everything," said center A.J. Hammons, gushing after a game in De- cember. "He doesn't talk back, and he does everything Coach says. He hustles, and he does everything he needs to do. That just sets an example for ev- erybody else. It sets an example for me, and I've been here three years. Sets an example for (the younger players). So it's just great. "He's just pretty much perfect." When told of the comment, Octeus shrugged it off. He doesn't seem to think he should be applauded for effort, for listening, for adjusting his game to fit in with the bigger plan. It's just who he is. It's just what he does. Because there's a bigger goal always in mind. "I'm just a guy who will do whatever it takes to win," Octeus said. And those aren't just words in Octeus' case. They're supported by action. It's been quite the change in West Lafayette from what Octeus thought it'd be in his final college sea- son. Especially with all he went through to get to it. Octeus has made a career of bouncing around from college to college — he actually also went to multiple middle schools and two high schools while his mom moved around Florida and briefly to Georgia. After two years at Colorado State — after two stops at junior col- leges, redshirting at the first in Kansas before playing at another in Illinois — Octeus was set to transfer to UCLA for his fifth season and attend graduate school. He chose the Bruins because he thought it'd be the best path to set off a professional career. He committed in July, after tak- ing 15 credit hours that summer to graduate, and didn't find out until mid-September he wasn't accepted to the grad program, he said. Octeus had no idea where he was going to go next. Until a UCLA assistant coach's connection to Matt Painter produced results. "Purdue called, and I got lucky," Oc- teus said. "It was a long summer. … It's just humbled me. I always be- lieve in positive thought, positive energy, so when it was going down like that, I was just telling myself it was going to work out, it was going to work out, and then it worked out. So it just reassures me that mindset really does work. I never stopped working. I was working out. I ac- tually broke my hand in the summer, so I couldn't use my hand that much. I was just telling myself, 'Whatever happens, it's going to be for a reason.' It ended up working out really well." Tom Campbell Jon Octeus has traveled an odd and winding road to get to Purdue, but he's been ex- actly what Matt Painter has needed in a point guard.