On his senior night, Caleb Furst played the part.

He soaked up the standing applause of 15,000 devotees, shook his coach’s hand with a smile and took his flowers, a yellow bouquet.

He hugged his mom, his fiancée, his father and brothers, if a bit sheepishly.

And then the lone senior on Purdue’s men’s basketball team finished it off with his obligatory speech, starting with a nod to his immense faith and continuing to thank just about every person who’d shared with him, by some measures, the most successful ride in the program’s vaunted history.

Oh, and then there was the game.

The forward scored only 2 points, but they were loud: On the fast break with point guard Braden Smith in the first half, he high-pointed a perfect alley-oop pass for a dunk that roused the Mackey Arena crowd with Purdue separated by just 3 points on the scoreboard.

But the measure of Furst’s nightly success isn’t found in that column in the box score. Mover over a few and you’ll see he was exactly who Purdue need him to be, Tuesday night and all the other nights that await these Boilermakers.

Feast your eyes on his nine rebounds.

The first came late in the game’s opening half, in a display of senior versus freshman hustle as Furst wiped all-world newcomer Ace Bailey from the paint and made the basketball his.

That was a start, but Purdue needed more. It entered halftime down one in the rebounding battle, an uncomfortably familiar position for the Boilers in their recent games, of which they’ve lost four.

Purdue’s rebounding often waxes and wanes with Furst’s contributions. He corralled only two against UCLA, and nary a single one in a loss to Michigan State. The Boilers’ rebounding came up short of their opponent's in both games.

“Caleb’s got the ability to do it,” assistant coach Paul Lusk said Monday. “And that's the role we absolutely need from Caleb.”

And so began the second half. Mackey Arena braced for impact.

For weeks, one-time Big Ten leader Purdue had salted its title hopes away in the second halves of games, many of which it led at halftime. Even in the Boilers’ win last week over UCLA, the Bruins had spurted out to a small lead after the buzzer. The effect was particularly deadly in three recent road games.

“You take the opposing team out of it early when you’re able to go on a run,” Smith said. “That’s what happened to us in those road games. The fans got into it, and it got tougher for us, and we weren't hitting shots.”

But calamity didn’t strike in this latest half of basketball. Instead, the Boilers doled out that medicine to Rutgers.

In a flash, a bucket in the paint and two 3s had buried the Scarlet Knights under 17 points of Purdue cushion and a downpour from the stands.

It was powered by a rebounding surge.

First, the notably under-springy junior forward Trey Kaufman-Renn muscled and pawed his way to a board that became a second-chance 3-pointer.

Then Purdue rebuffed Rutgers on defense and began hunting another 3. Junior guard Flecther Loyer tried an open one. Wasn’t to be, but it popped right back to him. The Boilers swung the ball around, and Smith launched a contested, fadeaway look from range.

Furst, spotted up in the corner and noticing no one under the hoop, zipped around an unaware Rutgers defender and straight toward the rim. But Smith’s shot clanked away from the big man. That’s when he committed his second act of senior-on-freshman violence.

Furst exploded upward with Rutgers’ Bailey and swiped the ball clean as his opponent tried to bring it down. The senior flipped a pass to an open Smith in the corner. Bang.

“I thought we were able to steal their spirit right there,” coach Matt Painter said.

Furst wrangled seven more rebounds in the half, only playing 12 minutes in it, to boot.

“It's just a matter of him going out and doing it,” Lusk had said. “Caleb's got the physical tools, the quickness, the size, the athleticism to do it, and when he's done it, we've been better.”

Purdue, down a rebound at halftime, won the second period in that category 28-13.

Asked for a prescription for sustained rebounding improvement from his lone senior, Matt Painter’s eyes went wide as quarters.

“Go get ‘em,” he said. “We need to get eight to 10 boards from (him).”

It’s March, which means Furst’s time as a Boilermaker is limited. It’s alright. He’s going on to medical school after this, having won more games than anyone in program history.

But if the senior can keep posting nine-rebound games, he might just spend a few more of them in a Purdue jersey than his expiration date calls for.