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For new Purdue assistant coaches, it could be a relatively easy transition

Purdue's Paul Lusk
Paul Lusk returned to Purdue's staff after stints as the head coach at Missouri State and an assistant at Creighton. (Purdue)

Paul Lusk's and Terry Johnson's respective transitions to being part of Matt Painter's staff at Purdue won't come without adjustments.

They should, though, come with far fewer of them than would normally be the case in a profession where movement is simply a fact of life. Both come with both built-in familiarity and fairly apparent compatibility.

More so for Lusk, who was a member of Painter's first staff at Purdue after spending a year on the bench as part of Gene Keady's last.

"I pretty much consider it home, really," said Lusk, who returned to Purdue after three seasons as an assistant at Creighton and a seven-year run as Missouri State's head coach. "... It's a place I've always felt very comfortable at and kind of aligns with my values and it's just been a good fit.

"The place has changed. I left 10 years ago and once I got back I didn't know where the heck I was with all the facility upgrades that have been done. But while the place has changed in terms of the buildings, the people are the same. They're Purdue people and they're about the right things."

Painter has long valued Lusk, dating back to negotiations that took place when Purdue was recruiting Painter to become Keady's successor-in-waiting. Keady has said that Painter's lone "demand" was the chance to bring Lusk from Southern Illinois with him.

That was a long time ago now, but that draw remained strong, and when Steve Lutz left to become head coach at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Painter worked off a one-name list and had his man at hello.

Lusk returns to a program in a different place than he left it. Purdue's level of investment in the program has increased considerably, the program has recruited very well and won consistently and by every account, Painter has hit his stride, so to speak, guiding the Boilermaker program. Stability and consistency, two precious commodities in college basketball, have become some of the program's calling cards.

But Lusk has changed, too, following seven years — no small number In that space — as a head coach, a stint with Greg McDermott at Creighton, and simply the chronological passage of time.

"We all evolve," Lusk said. "... You gain more experience and with that experience comes wisdom."

The 49-year-old valued his experience as a head coach, but relished the opportunity to get more involved on a day-to-day basis with his players while at Creighton, the sort of relationships sometimes head coaches don't have time for.

"As you get older, you just understand that we all have egos, but as you reflect and you mature, you truly understand that it's about the players and it's never about you," Lusk said. "It's about serving the players and serving the program to the best of your capabilities."

Similar to his hiring of Micah Shrewsberry a few years back, Painter is bringing back a coach he'd previously worked with at Purdue and had maintained close contact with all the while since. Lusk has remained close with both Painter and long-time aide Elliot Bloom.

Painter and Lusk have a history of working — and working well — together.

"I never left a pre-game scouting report meeting or film session thinking, 'These dudes aren't on the same page. This isn't gonna work,'" said former Boilermaker guard and current Incarnate Word assistant coach Ryne Smith, who Lusk recruited out of high school. "I don't think I ever looked at it like the two of them were thinking alike or super-tight friends or anything like that, but it was always, 'We may be playing the No. 16 team in the country or whatever tonight, but this is gonna work.' They were always on the same page."

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Terry Johnson
Terry Johnson (middle) comes to Purdue from Ohio State. (USA Today Sports)

Whereas Lusk is "family," Johnson is more like extended family, from the Butler network that has so closely paralleled Purdue in a variety of ways. Shrewsberry's a Butler product, and Painter and Brad Stevens have long been kindred sorts of coaching spirits, building programs largely the same way, on the same principles.

"Butler shaped my entire coaching thinking," Johnson said. "The type of players you want in your program, to how you carry yourself in a program, and really just the type of people you want to be around. ... I'd been other places that were good places before that, but when I got (to Butler), their values lined up with my values and I was able to see the bigger picture of both basketball and coaching and what I wanted to be around and what I wanted to be."

He's found that fit at Purdue, he says.

Johnson came to Purdue from Ohio State, a bit of an eye-opener of an intra-conference move after he relocated to Columbus from Butler with Chris Holtmann years back.

But it's a move Johnson made out of ambition as he works toward his chance to become a head coach, as former Painter staffers Shrewsberry and Lutz just did. They joined Cuonzo Martin, Lusk, Jack Owens and Greg Gary as Painter assistants who've left Purdue for head coaching positions.

Johnson was Ohio State's defensive-focused coach, and had been heavily involved in that area at Butler. Painter hired him to work primarily with the offense, which he believes will allow him to "grow as a coach."

"Obviously I want to be a head coach," Johnson said, "and Coach Painter's done a great job promoting his guys and putting them in situations to become head coaches, and I think it's not just that he promotes them but he enhances them by giving them a lot of responsibility. He's real comfortable with who he is and as a leader, I think he does a great job enhancing his staff."

The move to offense will present a bit of an adjustment for Johnson, a close friend Shrewsberry, his former Butler colleague.

"I think it's all just basketball, but I think the biggest adjustment will be learning the lingo and then like Coach Painter said, 'Now, Terry, you will not be able to watch the game because you have to move on to the next play to get the next play call in,'" Johnson said. "That will be an adjustment for me, but it's basketball. And, like I told them, I've been scouting them for four years now. It's just the lingo I don't know."

Johnson knows Purdue's offense from the outside-in.

"I have a few of their calls, but not all of them," he joked.

That's where the smoothness could lie in Johnson's transition to Purdue.

For one thing, the like-mindedness of the Butler program and the familiarity with the Big Ten from his time with the Buckeyes speak to compatibility.

But Johnson also has a knowledge bases with Purdue's personnel from facing it every year. The Boilermakers and Buckeyes played three times this past season — three absolute slugfests — and most of those Purdue players are back.

And it bears mentioning that Johnson recruited a bunch of the players he'll now be coaching. He pursued senior Eric Hunter for Butler and knows Isaiah Thompson's family from having recruited P.J. Thompson, who's expected to remain on staff at Purdue after his two-year graduate-assistant term ran out.

At Ohio State, Johnson was the lead recruiter for incoming freshman Caleb Furst, actively recruited Mason Gillis and was present when Ethan Morton visited Ohio State, even though he wasn't the lead recruiter.

Johnson holds some connections to Purdue in that one of his cousins, Jermaine Allensworth, played baseball for the Boilermakers before playing in the Majors and two other cousins actually played for Painter years ago when he was Tom Reiter's assistant coach at Washington & Jefferson near Pittsburgh from 1993-94.

Those connections don't matter as much to the actual job, but there's plenty in Johnson's background and coaching history, and temperament, that should make his move to Purdue fairly seamless, all things considered.

"This is so much easier," he said.

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