At some point after every night game in Mackey Arena, the lights go out, replaced then by the faint auxiliary overnight lighting that casts a sort of neon glow over Keady Court.

On the night of Jan. 16, a few hours after Purdue's 78-50 win over Wisconsin, all Vincent Edwards, his older brother Bill Edwards Jr., and their uncle, Christopher, along with one of Christopher's friends, needed was that glow.

The lights were out — pitch black — in Purdue's practice gym, so pale-glow Mackey it had to be.

"It made the rim look kind of orange," Bill Edwards Jr. said.

It was all they needed.

What started out as a typical post-game workout for Vincent, presided over by Bill Jr., turned into a sort of all-nighter of competitive play.

Vincent Edwards, who'd just scored 20 against the Badgers, wanted his brother in on the competition, in on those pre-dawn three-dribble one-on-one games and whatever else they did.

Edwards Jr. — who played at Penn State, then Miami (Ohio) before severely injuring his knee late in his career — has put his own career on hold in order to help with his youngest brother's any way he can, serving as Vincent's de facto trainer and one of the many, many familial basketball sounding boards in Purdue's standout forward's ear.

On this night, Vincent Edwards told his brother that things weren't just about him, that he needed to get moving on his comeback, too.

“That sort of triggered us playing instead of just getting a workout," said Bill Edwards Jr., part of the Middletown, Ohio, contingent that set out for home sometime around 4 a.m. the following morning, "and an hour turned into two hours, which turned into three hours."

Bill Edwards Jr. has put his hopes for a continued playing career on hold, forsaking what could be some of his peak years, in order to help with his brother's career best he can, a sacrifice he says he's happy to make and one Vincent says he very much appreciates, most of the time.

“Sometimes I don’t like it because he’s such a good player, better than people know," Vincent Edwards said. "He played at such a steady pace, he’s 6-6, 250, 240 frame, left-handed, and he’s a 2-guard, a combo guard, and those are hard to find. And left-handers look so much better when they play, so much harder to guard. Sometimes, I hate it, but that’s the sacrifice he made for me."

Bill Jr. loomed large in Vincent Edwards' upbringing, Vincent said, while their father, Bill Sr., was playing professionally overseas.

“He always did the little things for me," Vincent Edwards said. "It was almost like he raised me, making the sacrifices a parent would make. He’d make sure I ate before he ate at times. Brothers don’t have to do that. They eat first. But he’s always put me first.

"I don't know if I can ever repay him."

The older brother-younger brother basketball bond might be the face of a family dynamic inextricably linked to the shaping of a player Matt Painter has called one of the best in school history.

Vincent Edwards' career has always been a family thing, a chorus of voices in the Purdue forward's ear, productive voices, he said, but voices nonetheless.

“There’s definitely points in time where your family is your biggest critic," said Vincent Edwards, admitting to sometimes bristling. "When you have a basketball family, most people can’t say that. You can’t say to them, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about’ when you have a dad who’s been through every step you can go through, a mom who’s played at the collegiate level, a brother who played in the Big Ten. You can’t tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about, because they did it, and they do know what they’re talking about.”

Yes, Edwards' family — to a man, and woman — has been through it.

Bill Sr. stands as the greatest player in the history of Wright State basketball. He left the program in 1993 as its all-time leading scorer and all-time leading rebounder and today, roughly a quarter century later, he remains its all-time leading scorer and all-time leading rebounder.

Long-time Eastern Illinois coach Rick Samuels once told his former assistant coach, Matt Painter, that Edwards was the greatest player he'd ever coached against.

Bill Edwards Sr. pushed Vincent hard when he was young, Senior's professional playing career overseas concluding just as his youngest was due to begin his own career, allowing father an opportunity to coach son with the local AAU youth team that eventually became the King James program, then again as an assistant coach at Middletown High School.

Edwards Sr. is philosophically opposed to parents coaching their kids from the stands — "the worst thing in the world," as he says — so you won't hear his voice during games he's not actually coaching. But his teaching, he says, takes place after games.

But he coached Vincent in a lot of games, too.

"You’d have daddyball a lot in those situations," Bill Edwards Jr. said, "but I think it helped Vincent because my dad was so hard on him and held him to a higher standard instead of making sure his son did this or that. I think the toughness my dad brought to him helped him.

“There’d be times he'd come to mom all upset," Edwards Jr. continued, "because he got 12 rebounds and my dad wanted 15 or 20.”

Edwards' mother, Glennetta Patton, played basketball at Sinclair Community College in Dayton and served as her youngest son's first coach, beginning at age 5.

To this day, she reminds Vincent Edwards constantly to "control what he can control," but has generally left it at that during his college career.

"Unless it's rebounding or free throws," Vincent Edwards said. "Then she jumps in."

When Edwards was young, mom schooled him to remember that when you rebound, you don't have to rely on others to get you the ball. When Vincent Edwards was moved out of Purdue's starting lineup briefly as a junior, she reminded him again, and Edwards went on an offensive rebounding tear in the games that followed, related or not, and quickly said good-bye to life as a reserve.

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Oldest brother Darius was more of a football player, but Bill Jr. preceded Vincent as coming up as one of the top players in Ohio and a Big Ten-caliber recruit.

Chris Edwards, Bill Sr.'s youngest brother, is Vincent's uncle, but just a few years older than Vincent and amounted to his fourth sibling, and a similarly impactful presence in Vincent Edwards' development.

“My brother, Bill, and my uncle did a good job pushing me all the time," Vincent Edwards said. "We didn’t get along at times. It was such a thin line between love and hate.

"But they knew I had something, and they wanted me to be better, to be something special.”

They weren't always so nice.

The youngest is always the easiest target.

“He would whine," Bill Edwards Sr. said, "and I’d always have to tell them to leave their brother alone, but that just comes with the territory being a youngest brother.”

Dakota Mathias knows the feeling, having himself grown up as the youngest of three brothers in a highly competitive family.

“They pick on you every chance they get," Mathias said. "It just toughens you up.”

In Edwards' case, it left him no choice, and maybe that's part of the reason he's become the player he's become, the versatile, multi-purpose player with a knack for being whatever the Boilermakers need him to be whenever they need him to be it.

Whether it's been driving to the basket, rebounding, setting up teammates to an extent never before seen at Purdue from a forward, or making threes, Edwards has done a lot of everything the past four seasons.

Last week against Butler, Edwards rolled into the post and effectively replaced the interior scoring Purdue might otherwise have gotten from the injured Isaac Haas. He's always been crafty in such situations, maybe a product of growing up playing against bigger, better put-together and older brother Bill Jr. and his older friends. It taught him to be physical and crafty, a technician with his feet.

But across the board, versatility has been a common thread in the family.

Bill Edwards Sr. was a 6-foot guard in high school. Then, when he was 16, he grew five inches into a body that belied his backcourt skill set.

For his youngest son, it was the opposite. Vincent grew up taller than his contemporaries, and thus came up a center as a child. When he got into the Middletown school system, some other big men came along — one of them, Chance Sorrell, was an offensive lineman in Penn State's football program — and Edwards moved into being more of a wing.

"Like any kid I’ve ever coached, I’ve never made a big man just a big man," Bill Edwards Sr. said. "I’ve just tried to develop kids’ all-around games.

“I don’t want to label kids, because if a kid never grows again, he’s going to have to be able to do other things. Just teach them the all-around game and go from there.”

By the time Vincent Edwards was a sophomore at Middletown High School, Painter saw him and was immediately sold on that all-around game, first by his rebounding, by his strong hands, nose for the ball and gaudy rebounding numbers from a player who physically overwhelmed exactly no one at that stage of his career.

“I remember when Coach Painter was recruiting him," Edwards Sr. said, "he told me he really wasn’t going to put a label on Vincent in terms of what position he’d be.”

At Purdue, Edwards has transcended position, a player who'll leave West Lafayette with some unique superlatives reflective of his ability to affect basketball games in myriad ways.

He'll leave the program having scored more than 1,600 points; grabbed more than 800 rebounds; dealt 400-plus assists; and made more than 170 three-pointers, products of the skills and adaptability he honed as a kid working out or playing at Middletown's old-time stand-alone arena, the Wade E. Miller Gym, which has since been replaced by a more modern facility, or the city's Douglass Park before the brothers started shying away from the wear and tear its blacktop might inflict on their knees.

They were always playing, still are.

Bill Jr. remembers carving out a three-point line in the snow one year and bringing Vincent outside to play; Vincent, to this day, goes home to Middletown whenever the opportunity arises for his brother to put him through a workout, though nowadays, Vincent is just as eager to return the favor for a sibling he wants to see playing again.

That's been the story of Edwards and his upbringing, the basketball bond he's shared with his parents and brothers and uncle alike, the environment that's helped shape him into a player that's done everything to this point.

Well, not everything.

The 21-year-old All-Big Ten forward and NBA prospect has yet to beat his 46-year-old father one-on-one.

“I always said I’d get him ’til I’m 50," Bill Sr. said, "but that’s not looking too good. I’m looking at another year at the most.”

If that.

“His time's running out," Vincent Edwards said. "He cheated me last time I was home. I’ll get him after the season is over."

They were calling their own fouls.

“If he slaps my arm, nothing," Edwards said. "If I just (tap) his arm, foul.

“Come on now.”

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