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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 28, ISSUE 2 40 was a little bit banged up, but I thought he had a really good tournament. I thought all of our guards had a good tournament. Our whole team had a good tournament." Gold and Black: Do you run things differently this season on offense? Painter: "We'll still try to feed Isaac as much as we can down on the block, and I think Vincent Edwards can be effective down low. I think what he will find is that his ability to pass is going to give some people some trouble. That's why we ran so much stuff for Biggie last year. I told him we run it not only because he can score the ball, but because he is also a good decision maker. That doesn't mean you're supposed to score the ball every time we run something for you. We just expect you to make the right play, because it can lead to wide open threes along with the defense rotating out of a good rebounding position." Gold and Black: Anything to get Carsen Edwards going at all? More high screens, anything like that? Painter: "We've always done ball-screen stuff with- in our motion and secondary motion. Carsen is so good at creating. Sometimes bringing someone to him to set a pick isn't good for him because then you have a sec- ond defender to him. Sometimes it's better to move the basketball, create space, and let him break people down. When he has space, he's really good. We have just played through the post so much with A.J., Biggie, and Isaac, that now it is really just going to be Isaac." Gold and Black: Is there an emphasis in your de- fensive scheme? Last year it seemed to be a sort of containment. Painter: "I think as time goes on, the answer will come to us. I don't think it's a heavy question by any stretch of the imagination. I think we just need more of what we're supposed to do. That will allow us to be more aggressive. If we don't do a good job of following scouting reports and maintaining discipline, then we will be more of a containment type of defense. "We didn't have a lot of blocks or steals last year, but our goal was to keep the other team out of the paint. I would like to be more aggressive as time goes on, but I don't want to sacrifice guys getting to the rim due to our absence of an imposing shot blocker. I think we can. I definitely think we can be better than last year's team because we have a lot of experience." Gold and Black: How would you describe your se- niors' legacy at Purdue to this point? Painter: "I'm not too concerned with legacies. I think they would like to come back and achieve what they did last year. They have gone to the NCAA Tournament every year, finished third twice in the Big Ten, and won the championship last year, and I think they want to do that again and go to the tournament and win some games. The legacy is probably already stamped, but I think you 'It Doesn't Affect Me One Bit' On Sept. 26, college basketball was shaken to its very foundation as the FBI detained several assistant coaches as part of a yearlong investigation into al- leged criminal conduct in recruiting. Soon after, Purdue coach Matt Painter was asked for his reaction. "Obviously, it's pretty sad," Painter said. "You don't wish ill will on anybody, especially those in your busi- ness, but it's one of those things like steroids in base- ball where we all wondered, 'What will it look like in 15-20 years and what will happen to a lot of guys in baseball that made that decision?' I think baseball's better because of it. Do we still think there's a prob- lem with it? Obviously. There's still guys getting sus- pended here and there for it, but I definitely think the game is better because of what they did." Painter is known both locally and nationally as a particularly letter-of-the-law-minded coach, a com- fort for Purdue amidst this fall's chaos. "With this, I think it sends a loud message through college basketball that they're not messing around," Painter said of the FBI. "I applaud what they did. You have a conscious decision to do what you're supposed to do in any profession and some people decided not to do that. Obviously they're going to pay dearly. "But from a personal standpoint, it doesn't affect me one bit. You're worried about your team and get- ting guys to understand the opportunity they have here and getting them to grow as individuals, stu- dents and players and hopefully each year, have a good team." — Brian Neubert