Around 13 minutes from the end of a night that could have lived in infamy, Matt Painter picked up a towel and dried his hands, presumably from sweat.

His team wasn’t supposed to be this close to five-straight losses.

But here was UCLA, down just 52-51 after slipping free for a dunk. Then the Boilers committed a turnover. Purdue teetered on an uncomfortable edge.

A familiar drama was unfolding in front of a hushed Mackey Arena crowd, one in which Purdue jumps out to an early lead – like it’s supposed to – before giving it up minutes from halftime and continuing to spin afterward. The Boilermakers led the Bruins by 10 with six minutes left in the first period, but only 2 once those minutes expired. UCLA led soon into the next half.

If Painter’s heart was racing, he didn’t show it outwardly. His straight, still 6-foot-6 frame instead provided a foil for UCLA coach Mick Cronin, 5-foot-7 and storming up and down the sideline with face taut even when it’s blank. Even Painter’s hands hung still, limp against his slacks. The only thing moving was his mind.

Fast-forward a few minutes and Purdue leads by 5, with about five minutes to go. In a short on-court huddle, after the Boilers had already been briefed on the sideline during a timeout, they pumped each other up.

“We’re talking to each other,” Smith said, “having confidence and positive energy.”

Smith had lamented earlier in the week that his leadership hadn’t been good enough amid the losing streak. In his effort to stay calm, he had appeared lifeless.

He became a wrecking ball after that huddle broke.

Smith disrupted back-to-back UCLA attempts to score in the post, finagling a steal on the second. Its result was a Camden Heide 3-pointer. The Boilers never trailed again.

“It really shows our competitive drive and mental toughness,” junior forward Trey Kaufman-Renn said of the win.

Kaufman-Renn called a players-only meeting earlier in the week, and he, Smith and fellow junior Fletcher Loyer spent the intervening time reevaluating their leadership as they reckoned with their team’s tailspin.

They settled on a blend of accountability and positivity moving forward; mistakes and successes would be met with equally intense reaction. For a night, they hit it on the nose. The most striking example: UCLA out-rebounded the Boilers by 13 in the first half, but Purdue took over the glass after halftime to win second-chance points 16-9 in the game, prompted by a feeling that the previous 20 minutes weren’t near good enough.

“I would say I was just being soft in the first half,” said Heide, who played the game’s final 12 minutes and wrangled nine rebounds in that span. “There were opportunities to get rebounds and I just didn’t do it. That was an emphasis at halftime."

The impact of the week’s earlier meeting couldn’t be ignored.

“I think it kind of affected everybody,” Heide said. “I feel like a lot of it's just attention to detail. I've been taking accountability for stuff.”

“We’ve grown into having player-led teams,” Painter said. “And sometimes they look at that as a weakness of a coach. It's actually a strength, because you're empowering your players.”

Painter prefers to let his leadership trickle down, from himself to his lieutenants on the coaching staff, then to team captains and the rest. He transformed his assistant coach’s jobs to football-like coordinator roles, specific and narrow in focus, “because I want everything to be clear,” the coach said.

Everyone has a designated job and, as goes one of Painter’s most-repeated aphorisms, all he needs is for them to do it. He trusted his three junior leaders to do their job.

“You got to trust your leaders,” he said. “Because when you interfere, it doesn't allow it to be whole.”

A video that plays shortly before tip-off in Mackey Arena shows a different Painter, a version the veteran coach has outgrown. One that did not see the control gained in loosening his grip on his program’s complex machinations.


In it, a clip of Painter’s mentor and coach Gene Keady boisterously fist-pumping is followed by an instance of Painter doing the same. The footage is years old, judging by the color in Painter’s hair and suit he’s since ditched in favor of a quarter-zip.

“When I first started, I jumped over to the fight too much,” Painter said. “I was too emotional.”

Friday night, the program Painter has painstakingly assembled from personnel fit together as snug as puzzle pieces finally kicked into high-gear and ended the Boilers’ slide.

“When we get in, in June and July, we practice,” Painter said. He said it again. “We practice. I don’t need to go back to things. You know what you’re doing.”

So Painter tries to remain calm during games – “It’s a choice,” he assured – and communicate his trust through his stillness.

“I know this,” he said. “When I'm stressed out, they're stressed out.”

Painter’s team, in turn, collected itself after teetering, flipped a switch to play big, and avoided further calamity.

In other words, it did its job.

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