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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 27, ISSUE 4 59 and his ability to keep his composure." No one would have said that a year ago. Already his strength, Swanigan's rebounding is much improved, to the point he's rewriting Purdue's record books. He's positioned to break the school's single-sea- son record by triple-digits and may hold it for eternity. Eternity's a long time, for certain, but who's going to come to Purdue and average 13 rebounds a game? Pur- due hasn't had a player average that many or more since the '60s and the game's changed since then. This season, Swanigan will be the first Boilermaker this century to even average double-figures. More so than he did last season, Swanigan is pursu- ing every single ball like his life depends on it, no matter who stands in the way and no matter what jersey they're wearing. "There are no teammates in rebounding," Swanigan said earlier in the season. "Just go get the ball." That's what he's doing, at both ends of the floor, at a near-historic pace. Twice this season, he's finished games with only eight rebounds. That's his season-low total. It was his average as a freshman, an average of 8.3 that led the Big Ten. He's up 64 percent on that front. Swanigan's collected 10 or more boards in all but three games this season. He's grabbed 20 or more four times. He is likely to lead college basketball in, and set a Purdue record for, double-doubles. He's shooting better. Swanigan shot 29 percent from three-point range last season and sometimes let fly like a player who was shooting twice that. Now, he's not far off. More than halfway through the Big Ten season, he was shooting 50 percent. It may not hold up for the whole sea- son, but it does bear noting that Purdue's all-time record for a season is 50 percent, so that's the sort of pace Swan- igan spent much of the conference season on. He made three triples on four tries in that Michigan State game and his three-pointer late in Purdue's win at Maryland was the biggest shot the Boilermakers made that day aside from Carsen Edwards' game-winning free throws. All this comes on top of his interior game, where Swanigan's one of the finest low-post scorers in college basketball and a far more efficient one than he was last season. His field-goal and foul-shooting percentages are way up and his turnovers more reasonable than a season ago, though that remains a vulnerability. Swanigan's a better teammate, not that he was a bad one before. It's just that now things have changed. He's more comfortable with his team, more trusting of his coaches, more familiar with his surroundings. He said before the season that for him, this season was about winning more than his own personal interests, knowing that the two things are inextricably linked. Ev- erything he's done this season has backed up those pre- season claims. He's a better leader. It was Swanigan who approached Matt Painter prior to the season and asked for an alpha role on the leadership front. He was subsequently named a captain. His work ethic, stuff of legend around the program, hasn't changed. He's still putting in hours of his own time per day, managing his body with an obsessive diligence. After Purdue's 74-55 win over Rutgers Feb. 14, Swani- gan inadvertently missed the post-game press conference because he'd taken to the StairMaster to get his cardio in, at around 10 p.m., immediately after a 17-rebound game against the Scarlet Knights. While also finding the time to accumulate a GPA well north of 3.0 and put himself on pace to earn his degree with relative ease at some point — a player who skipped over a whole year of high school now has credits enough to qualify as a college junior academically — Swanigan's lived a college life defined by toil, whether it's been the hours and hours of conditioning work he's done, the tens of thousands of jump shots he's taken, alone or other- wise, or the countless early mornings. "There have been nights when we've both had really good games, then said we'd go work out the next day, but I've gotten that call at like 8:30 or 9 that next morning, saying, 'Let's just go knock it out now,'" fellow captain P.J. Thompson said of Swanigan. "That kind of leadership and willingness to make yourself and teammates better is what's made us a really good team this year. And it's what makes him a special player." Around Purdue's facilities, before practice, after prac- tice, whenever, Swanigan always seems to be sweating. Profusely. He likes it that way. It's the reason he wears sweatpants during practice and hoodies during most ev-