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14 ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 3 f versation dominated by technical basketball jargon, as if speaking some alternative language. Painter blows his whistle at 3:13 p.m.: "Down here!" Things pick up now. It's time for Purdue's five-on-five blockout drill, a full- court drill. Painter's philosophy is to weave between full-court and half-court work liberally, "to keep them on their toes." The tone here is set by the head coach when he directs a post player to "lay the wood to this guy right here." It's only practice, but this is where it starts to illustrate the reputed intensity of Purdue practice, the reason past players have said things often like, "The games are the easy part." Purdue's "continuous rebound" drill is part of that. Only the whistle stops play. There's no out of bounds and cer- tainly no fouls. This isn't continuous rebound, though. The goal here is to grab a rebound —Gary does a partic- ularly poor job in this drill intentionally missing jump shots, so players are more often pulling the ball out of the bottom of the net — then run the floor fast-break style, simulating half-court offense at a fast pace, passing the ball at least five times, then scoring it. Purdue is working on transition motion offense, a pillar of its practice regimens. To start the session, Dakota Mathias, P.J. Thompson, Bryson Scott, Haas and Edwards run the floor together and pass the ball around quick, like it's a burning coal, before the passing requirement is met and Scott throws down a one-handed dunk. Then, the next group does the same. Painter stops the drill to demonstrate something min- ute. This happens often. The Boilermaker head coach is hands-on, an active participant in practice. His intent is not to stop practice as often as some coaches would — "you can't stop a game when you want," he says — but he has five freshmen on the floor and a point guard, Jon Octeus, who's been on campus three weeks at this point. It's inevitable. Edwards botches a motion principle. Painter comes over patiently and walks through it. Scott then makes a mistake. "Did you follow the ball like I said?" Painter asks him. "That's OK, that's why we're doing it." Haas, another freshman, then messes up. "You ask good questions," Painter said, "but when you don't know something, you've got to say something!" This is early in the season, mind you, so repeats of these mistakes a month or two later might not be met with such understanding. At the other end, Hammons is picking at his mouth, hav- ing just taken a shot to it, and talking to team trainer Chad Young. It's no issue at all, and even if it was, he'd have time to cool off, since at 3:30 p.m. it's time for free throws and drinks. Players are free to hydrate and leisurely shoot free throws on one of the five baskets set up in Mackey Arena for this practice. It's casual. Basil Smotherman is talking particularly boisterously with Thompson and Anfernee Brown at the basket opposite the tunnel. While the players shoot, the coaching staff huddles. Painter demonstrates something to his assistants, then moves on to chat with Haas about something from earlier in practice. The whistle blows and things pick up again. Owens takes the black jerseys — the team's starting five — to one end while Gary and Brantley keep the gold-shirt- ed players. It's time for out-of-bounds and sideline out-of-bounds plays, a full-speed drill. It starts ominously. Octeus draws a foul from Edwards, goes down hard and stays down, laying flat on his stomach, his back apparently in pain. Hammons pats Edwards on the back while Octeus stays down and is observed by Young and a student trainer. A few minutes pass before the first-year senior is peeled off Keady Court, stands up, but quickly hunches back over. Before long, though, Young and another trainer have Octe- us upright and swinging his leg. Later, Young puts on a purple glove, smears some oint- ment on Octeus and the senior shortly thereafter returns to practice, seemingly back to normal, or pretty close to it. Things quieted when Octeus was down, but the calm was fleeting. These practices are lively, lots of talking. Part of that is organic given the youthfulness of this team and some of the personalities involved, but it's also cultivated as well. Communication is a must for Painter during practices, a bedrock of what he wants to see from his players, consid- ering the importance of cooperation and cohesiveness on game days, when a coach can't just blow his whistle and