Gene Keady had some run at Purdue.

But as the Boilermakers walked off the floor following an NIT loss at Notre Dame, it was their fifth straight loss to end an '03-04 season that began in promising fashion and after two dozen seasons, it was evident the Keady Era's end was near.

This was a sticky situation for Purdue.

The Boilermakers had just missed the NCAA Tournament for the third time in four seasons. Keady, about to turn 68, had just one year left on his contract. He'd sought an extension, but then-athletic director Morgan Burke declined, signal enough that Purdue was ready to move on.

Moving on from legends, however, is no small challenge, and Keady was indeed a legend in West Lafayette, the winner of six Big Ten titles, winner of hundreds of games and arguably the face of the university, let alone the athletic department.

Keady flirted with a soft-landing sort of opportunity at the University of San Francisco.

No one wanted to see the iconic coach anywhere other than Purdue. Burke appealed to Keady to finish his career where he'd established his legacy. That said, he would not have stood in Keady's way had he decided to leave, as a university at the time actually articulated.

Either way, the end was near, and Purdue's best-case scenario would be to devise an exit strategy that both invigorated the program and did right by Keady.

It was a difficult position, for certain.

Sixteen years ago tomorrow — April 9, 2004 — Burke, Keady and Matt Painter sat side by side by side behind microphones in Mackey Arena. Painter, then 33 years old and with just one season of head coaching experience, would be returning to his alma mater as Keady's successor-in-waiting, a bold move for Purdue and a bold move by Painter, but one that time has shown to have worked out beautifully.

This is a notable juncture in Painter's Purdue career, a nexus of a variety of milestones.

He just completed his 15th season as the Boilermakers' head coach.

This past season, he coached his 500th game.

On Aug. 27, he turns 50 years old.

He's won 337 games at Purdue, well on his way to blowing 500 out of the water.

He's won three Big Ten regular season titles and a Big Ten Tournament title, missed the NCAA Tournament only three times since his first season — counting this truncated past season as a presumed miss — and led Purdue to within an eyelash of the Final Four at this time a year ago.

Purdue needed to find a replacement for Keady and essentially found its next Keady, as Painter has rebuilt Purdue's program largely the same way his predecessor did and brought it much the same level of sustained success and continuity.

Purdue took a bit of a risk hiring Painter many years ago. When he took over for Keady, he was the second-youngest major-conference coach in America, just a couple months older than Baylor's Scott Drew.

But Painter took a risk, too, cashing in his rising star in the profession on a program that had fallen on hard times, requiring him to take a step back to being an assistant coach for a year, no less.

For both, the risk came with great reward.

Now, more than a decade-and-a-half after one of Purdue's greatest dramas unfolded, here's the story of Painter's hiring, as told by those most closely involved.

As Painter has said many times over the years, this all started with Matt Doherty.

Had Doherty — North Carolina's successor to Dean Smith's successor, Bill Guthridge — not flamed out after just three seasons, Roy Williams doesn't leave Kansas. If Roy Williams doesn't leave Kansas, Bill Self doesn't leave Illinois for Kansas.

And if Bill Self doesn't leave Illinois, then Bruce Weber is almost certainly next in line at Purdue.

That was the moment clarity went by the wayside for Purdue, because for years, concerns over Keady's shelf life in West Lafayette could be soothed by the knowledge that his long-time top assistant was just a phone call away. It took years for Weber to get his first head coaching job, but once Southern Illinois gave him his shot, he tore it up.

He'd proven himself away from Purdue, as he was told by Burke he needed to in order to succeed Keady one day. Otherwise, Weber never would have left. He said he planned on being Purdue's next coach. But he needed to leave to come back.

Conversations did take place after Weber left.

Bruce Weber: "The year after I left Purdue for Southern Illinois, the administration called me and said, 'We want you to come back. You can be the coach-in-waiting. I did not want to be the person who was pushing Coach Keady out. I wanted to be a head coach, but I wanted him to enjoy the end of his career. I just said to Coach, 'When you’re ready to be done — which I know would probably be never — just tell me.' Pretty much every year, we talked about it, but he didn’t want to (step away) and for me, Illinois came about, and obviously, we had some pretty good success."

Now, Purdue's obvious choice to succeed Keady was off the board. The Weber Ship had sailed, digging in at Illinois, which he quickly led to the Final Four. Weber's now the head coach at Keady's alma mater, Kansas State.

Weber wouldn't be coaching Purdue, but his move to Illinois turned out to be a seismic one for the Boilermakers' eventual search.

By vacating his post at Southern Illinois, he handed off a great Saluki team to his top assistant, Painter.

When Weber got the Illinois job, back in West Lafayette, Burke had begun formulating a list of names to Iook into when the time came. Weber's move to Champaign may have crossed his name off that list, but also may have added Painter's.

Morgan Burke: "After the 2002-2003 season, we began to talk more about (the future), as it was pretty clear that at some point in time, and we weren't exactly sure when, the baton was going to be handed off. And so I began to keep a short list of people that you think would be would be at least A-bucket, B-bucket, C-bucket kinds of people. So if Coach get hit by a bus, you're not sitting there without any preparatory work being done. So that work was underway and we began to talk a little bit with Gene about succession after that 2003 season. The name that was on the list that we had developed of potential coaches included Matt Painter."

Gene Keady: “I suggested a couple of guys to Morgan and I don’t know if he liked all my suggestions, but I said, ‘Well, Matt Painter is one of my all-time favorite players and a (Purdue) family guy as far as us working together, so I’d suggest Matt Painter.’ Morgan accepted that and that’s how we came to interview him. He was pretty receptive to it. He knew Matt as a player and liked him pretty well, I think.”

Painter had just coached Southern Illinois to a Missouri Valley title, a 25-5 record and a 2004 NCAA Tournament appearance.

Burke came from a corporate background and the thought of a pre-ordained successor appealed to him for a number of reasons, continuity being a particularly important one.

Succession also represented a potential escape hatch from the sticky situation of replacing Keady in as respectful a manner as could be.

That's a tough act to pull off, and there was very little precedent, if any, for this specific type of succession being implemented. Scores of coaches over the years had been promoted within their own programs to replace head coaches or returned to programs from their pasts to replace head coaches. Surely, there were many deals struck behind closed doors tabbing assistants as next in line.

But a head coach leaving a head coaching job to become an assistant coach for the coach he'd be replacing? There wasn't a lot of frame of reference on that. There may have been no frame of reference on that. For frame of reference, Burke could cite only the corporate world, not the college basketball world.

Morgan Burke: "It is a pretty common practice. In most organizations, where you can plan succession, you do it, but it doesn't always work. But in this particular case, where you had a coach who is late in his tenure, who is really a guy that we knew was a Hall-of-Famer, that meant a lot to the Purdue culture, and was eager to make sure the program got handed off to somebody that he thought would maintain that culture and the values that he had created over the past two, three decades, was important to him. If you don't have all those things lined up, or other circumstances where it wouldn't work as one, it kind of lined up well, because the incumbent being Gene, you really wanted to see the program handed off, so it wouldn’t take a hard left or a hard right from the underlying values and culture he had created."

Thing was, the succession arrangement wasn't one Purdue could realistically pitch to candidates at certain points in their careers, and would obviously be a hard sell to candidates from outside the Keady Coaching Tree.

As this was going on, strong voices from within that Keady Coaching Tree advocated for Painter.

Tom Reiter, a former Keady assistant coach who gave Painter his first coaching job at Washington & Jefferson in 1993, had returned to Purdue as an administrator. He wrote Burke a letter detailing the promise he saw in Painter and his qualifications to be Keady's successor at whatever point the job came open. (Reiter's wife, Stacie, gave Painter a copy of that letter following Tom Reiter's passing in 2014.)

Meanwhile, as Purdue advanced in the process, Weber had his say, advocating for his former assistant coach for the job he once held right of first refusal for.

Now, keep in mind: Weber was very close with Painter and deeply respected him professionally. He figured Painter would make a terrific head coach. Weber had just become the head coach at the Big Ten school located closest to Purdue, one that had struggled for many years to beat Keady's Boilermaker teams.

Personally, Weber had every reason to stand up for Painter. Competitively, maybe not so much.

Nevertheless, Weber encouraged Burke to hire Painter. He told him, basically, "Hire him before someone else in your league does."

Bruce Weber: "Purdue was so much a part of my life. At that time, it was over half of my life. I was very proud of it, proud to be part of the program and what we did. It was important to me, and I really wanted it to continue with somebody that had been part of Coach Keady and had been part of the family. That was important to me. I felt very good about Matt. It’s a gamble every time you hire somebody. You never know if it’s the right fit. Obviously Matt knew Purdue, he knew Coach, he knew Indiana, he knew the Big Ten. It was a good fit and a good transition."

Burke's mind was made up. He was going to try to bring Painter back. Keep in mind that this ran largely concurrent with the San Francisco situation, so Purdue was considering coaches for both immediate- and eventual-vacancy scenarios.

Painter doesn't remember exactly who it was who made first contact on Purdue's behalf. A non-specific call came in at one point from a search firm headhunter that may or may not have been calling on Purdue's behalf. But once Purdue's interest was made known, Reiter served as Painter's sounding board, a bridge between two worlds, a personal friend and mentor who happened to have a pretty good idea about the lay of the land at the school that would eventually court Painter to return.

Matt Painter: “When you talk with the people who are actually making the decisions, you don’t want to hit them with too much and come off like you don’t want to be there. They’re not walking in your shoes so they don’t always understand that.”

Painter's mind is an analytical one and he was no different at age 33. There was much to consider before leaving a Southern Illinois program that was set up to win big for years to come.

Matt Painter: "We had a really good team. And Purdue didn't."

Still, the lure to West Lafayette was strong.

Paul Lusk, Painter's assistant at Southern Illinois at the time: “We had just lost in the NCAA Tournament to Alabama and we got back that next day. I was at Home Depot in the morning and I called Matt or he called me and he said he was on his way to West Lafayette and presented all of this to me. It was a very unique plan.

“The next thing I remember is being at the Final Four and I think we were rooming together there, and him having to go meet with the Purdue people again. It moved pretty quick from there."

Burke met with Painter in San Antonio.

The Keady-to-San Francisco situation was still up in the air.

Burke says he had three candidates set to interview for the immediate vacancy Keady would have created had he moved west. Painter would have been one of them.

But, Burke told Painter, if Keady remained for Year 25, then the coach-in-waiting job was basically a one-man process, and "the only interview you'll have is with Martin Jischke."

That meeting with Purdue's president occurred shortly after the San Antonio trip.

Jischke met with Painter at Burke's house.

Morgan Burke: "He and I talked and when President Jischke arrived they spent probably an hour in my living room, then Matt went on his way. Martin came back and said, 'Boy, he is really good. But he's so young.' I said, 'That's the risk you take.' And I said, 'We get a lot of people running companies that are 35 years old. I think he can do it.' I had to have the backing of the president because you're bypassing the multiple-interview situation.That's always hard for a president but Martin liked the due diligence we had done on him, as well as other candidates."

Keady was staying, Painter had the job if he wanted it, and all that was left to be decided was whether the move was the right one at that time. Purdue's roster wasn't ideal, for one thing.

Matt Painter: “If you win, everybody wants to make money or do this or that and have conversations about which school is offering more money and which school is offering more years or whatever. But if you win, you’re going to be happy, and if you lose you’re going to be miserable. I just want to be happy. So I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Man, I’m going to go back to Purdue!’ and then all of a sudden I’m looking at what’s coming at Southern Illinois and what’s returning at Southern Illinois, and then looking at what Purdue had. I knew they had three or four dudes who could play, but after that there weren’t a lot of guys. I knew it was going to be tough.

“But I knew that in two or three years, I’d be kicking myself if I’d stayed at Southern Illinois. We were going to win there. We had a really good team, and they went to three NCAA Tournaments after I left. But that third year was the year we went to the NCAA Tournament and won a game (at Purdue).

“I knew we would get to that point where there’s no doubt you’d rather be at Purdue than Southern Illinois, but I knew we were going to have to go through some things. We won 16 games my first two years, the worst two-year run in the history of Purdue basketball. I knew that was going to be really hard, but I knew that once we got it back, that was going to be the right decision."

Painter, obviously, took the job.

Southern Illinois offered to "more than double" Painter's then-modest salary, per the school at the time. Whether that was a credible attempt to keep him or a signal to its fans — or potential successors — regarding its commitment, who knows? But Painter was headed back to his home state, and his alma mater.

It was April 9, again, that Painter sat next to Keady and Burke on that stage, befitting a momentous occasion.

The Mackey Arena floor — named for Keady — normally isn't used for press conferences. But Elliot Bloom, then Purdue's sports information director and now Painter's director of basketball operations, wanted that day done right.

Elliot Bloom: “I pushed hard to have the press conference in Mackey, on a big stage, with a big set-up. When I first brought it up, I kind of got looked at like, ‘What are you talking about?’ Maybe I just have an inflated sense of the importance of Purdue basketball around Purdue, but I really viewed that day as kind of an iconic day. I’ve always been a big history buff, and this was a legend we were replacing. I always wonder, ‘What was the day Ward Lambert left like?’ Ward Lambert was an iconic guy, a Hall-of-Fame guy. This was going to be a big day. Coach Keady was going to say, ‘I’m done, and this guy is going to take over for the guy who’s been the face of Purdue basketball for 24, going on 25, years.’ He was Purdue.”

After being formally introduced as Purdue's coach-in-waiting, Painter met with his first, and Keady's last, Boilermaker team. Former point guard Brandon McKnight was going to be one of Keady's last seniors.

Brandon McKnight: "I didn't know much about Coach Painter then, just that he did play at Purdue, but once he got to campus and I started talking to him and hearing how he'd break down the game, I just knew he was a player's coach. And I'm not going to lie — nothing against Coach Keady but I was wishing I had at least one year with him. Hearing him just talk, you could tell he's a basketball guru, a mastermind, and it's not surprising to me at all to see the success he's having now."

That day on April 8 was a big day for Purdue basketball, but one followed by many hard days. Purdue won seven games the season Painter spent as associate head coach, Keady's finale. Painter's first season, sidetracked largely by injury, was only slightly better.

Paul Lusk, now an assistant coach at Creighton: “There were many times those first two years where you’d sit there thinking, ‘Man, this could go either way.’ You just had to stick to it and get good players who fit … but we had a lot of work to do.”

After Purdue lost at Minnesota on Jan. 12 of that following season, Painter stood by himself in the hallway looking at the box score while the rest of the coaching staff managed the team.

Part of that may have been the cramped quarters of Williams Arena's locker room accommodations, but it also reflected Painter's impulse to defer to Keady during his farewell season.

Today, Keady says he enjoyed that year's staff meetings with Painter and Lusk — who followed Painter to Purdue, as what Keady remembers as his successor's one "demand" – as well as former assistant Cuonzo Martin.

Painter's role, though, that year was clearly defined: Go get some players.

Paul Lusk: “We talk about it all the time about assistant coaches. Just do the best job you can do as an assistant coach and don’t worry about your next job. And even though Matt knew he was going to be the next head coach at Purdue, he really took that approach. He just wanted Coach Keady to win, just wanted to serve him, and that was all of our mindsets. The flip side of that was that Coach Keady was just an unbelievable pro. He was just like, ‘You guys go out and find us some players, because we have to get this thing back. It was really unique and wound up working.”

Painter spent his year-in-waiting recruiting at every opportunity.

While his first class yielded uneven results — an important lesson for the young coach on character and "fit" that has served him well ever since — that advance recruiting time laid the groundwork for Chris Kramer and Keaton Grant and the motherlode 2007 class that included three of the finest players of Purdue's modern era, Robbie Hummel, E'Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson.

It was two players inherited from Gene Keady, though, who led Purdue's Initial surge under Painter — Carl Landry and David Teague.

Matt Painter: “Ninety-five percent of the time, when you have to get something started, it starts with the guys you’re left. David Teague and Carl Landry saved us. I wish Matt Kiefer could have been pushed to the next year. We really could have taken off then.”

Purdue wasn't turned around overnight, but it didn't take long for some around Purdue's program to know that it would.

Elliot Bloom: “I think after the first day after Matt's hiring, I think I told my wife something like, ‘Boy, this is going to be great. We got a really good coach.’ It was kind of like you felt like you knew you had something really good, but not everybody knew it. And you were excited because you knew everybody in time was going to see it.”

Over the past decade-and-a-half, Purdue's seen it, a run of success under Painter that has rivaled the Keady Years, with much more to potentially come.

Keady coached 25 years. Painter has already coached 15 before turning 50.

This past season wasn't the follow up to the Elite Eight Purdue wanted — even if it was, there still wouldn't have been an NCAA Tournament — but Painter's already achieved one of coaching's most uncommon feats: Longevity.

His slippery slope may have come and gone during the downturn of 2012-2014, during which he suggested a third poor season in a row might have cost him his job.

Matt Painter: “Any time you have two bad seasons in a row, you’re going to be in the frying pan. You have three in a row, they’re going to flip the frying pan.”

The 2014 season kept the pan squarely right side up.

Five straight NCAA Tournament appearances, two Big Ten titles, two Sweet 16s and an Elite Eight followed, along with a couple of All-Americans.

Painter's young, Painter's content, Painter's winning, Painter's recruiting well and Painter's contract is set up in a way where he could be at Purdue a long, long time, potentially.

He says he hasn't thought much about how long he'll coach.

Keady's post-Purdue coaching life, including stops in the NBA and at St. John's, took him well into his 70s.

Matt Painter: “I don’t think I’d coach that long, but you never know. Age is just a number, and if you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything."

Membership Info: Sign up for GoldandBlack.com now | Why join? | Questions?

Follow GoldandBlack.com: Twitter | Facebook | YouTube

More: Gold and Black Illustrated/Gold and Black Express | Subscribe to our podcast

Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2020. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited.