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28 GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED are, makes you look in the mirror. It makes you to go back to the drawing board and keep getting better." Hammons: "I don't know … it just sucked. It was just bad. It showed me everything, because I didn't know when I came here. I just thought we were going to win. It was a wake-up call to just go out there and work for it." Gold and Black: How much personal pride do you take when you know you got through the hard times and brought about change? Hammons: "I don't think about it at a pride level. It's just something everybody goes through, everybody has hard times. Just make sure you don't go back to them, don't go back to the losing ways. Just keep going forward." Davis: "There's a lot of pride when you come into a league picked to finish at the bottom. At (Big Ten media day), no one's talking to you. (Opponents) were coming into Purdue thinking they could get this one like it's easy. (Opponents) are looking at their schedule seeing Pur- due twice and seeing two wins because we came in last place the year before. Winning games last year definitely showed everybody that the Purdue culture is back. We're going to play hard, we're going to defend, we're going to fight. You win some games, then get a little hyped going into the next season. But it means nothing until you step on the floor and actually win some games (this year). So I think you take pride in it, but you also know there's still another season at hand." Gold and Black: How did you help get things turned around last season? Davis: "You just have to understand that what you did the past two years wasn't good enough. So last offseason, we had to go back to ground zero, because we were at the bottom. When you're at the bottom, you can't get any lower, so we had to start all over. We had some new guys come and had guys leave. We started to grind, we started to work harder and decided to work smarter. I think that's the big- gest thing we did. Guys always talk about when they work hard, but if you're not working smart, then you're not re- ally working that hard. Working smarter as a team really helped us." Gold and Black: Rapheal, I've heard people talk about how you run this team. How did you grow into such a leader? Davis: "I just think we have guys that are easy to lead. We've got guys that want to do what's right for Purdue. You don't really have to get on guys. You've got other guys that when I'm not around, they speak up. They lead. When I'm not here, they lead. It's easy when everybody's on the same page and everybody wants to play hard for Purdue, and no one is worried about themselves. People give me a lot of credit, but it's not all me at all. We have great underclass- man leadership, great upperclassman leadership. I just happen to get the credit." Gold and Black: A.J., Painter called you the most unique player he's ever coached because of the way you mentored Isaac Haas last season and actually helped him beat you out for a starting job. Why'd you do that? Hammons: "He's my teammate. At the end of the day, I'm competing with you for minutes, but I'm going to need you at some point in time. I can't play every game perfectly. … Why not bring your teammate along with you? Teach Tom Campbell After two-and-a-half seasons of struggles, Davis and Ham- mons relished success during the Boilermakers' resurgence last winter.