Player's unselfish attitude helps team

By Paul Trembacki
Sports Editor

Good basketball teams usually have senior leadership, players who can defend well and players who can create their own shots.

But good teams also have a guy who can do the not-so-glamorous work, such as risking floor burns and other injuries to dive on the floor or out of bounds for a ball, banging inside for a rebound and committing a foul to prevent a crucial basket.

This season it looks as though Matt Carroll, a 6-foot-8, 222-pound freshman, will be one of the main people in that role for the Purdue men's basketball team.

In Purdue's season-opening 73-69 win over Valparaiso, Carroll, a reserve forward, had two points and a pair of rebounds, but, as in Purdue's two exhibition games, he also did the things that don't show up in the box score. He grabbed the ball from an opponent to force a jump ball and set some hard screens.

Carroll, an Aurora, Colo., native who got 19 scholarship offers from Division I schools, said he just wants to learn from the older players and from coach Gene Keady, who's in his 22nd year at Purdue.

That's why, despite his parents' request that he stay close to home, Carroll chose to reject offers from schools such as UCLA, Utah, Georgia Tech, Clemson and Vanderbilt to come to Purdue.

"I didn't look at any particular place saying 'I'm going to play right away here' or anything," Carroll said. "One of the things I did look at is 'Where's a place that I can learn the game?'"

Keady knows that the two-time MVP at Smoky Hill High School, who was among the top 100 recruits in his class, will develop well as an unselfish reserve.

"He doesn’t care if he scores, starts or plays a lot," Keady said.

Keady was impressed with the fact that Carroll expressed surprise with his playing time after playing 16 minutes and picking up seven rebounds and two points in Purdue's exhibition win over International Select Nov. 5.

"Well, a lot of freshmen come in, and if they don’t start, they're mad," Keady said. "He's a very intelligent young man, and he understands that if he sets screens and rebounds, his shooting will come along and he'll play a lot because of his attitude."

Carroll, a management major who made the honor roll all four years at Smoky Hill, wants to keep his hardworking attitude and keep learning the little things that make Big Ten basketball so intense.

"The little things that you learn are the things that make the difference," Carroll said.

Carroll has developed his mental traits, but he's also developed physically in the short time he's been at Purdue.

He came to Purdue this summer with fellow freshman Brandon McKnight, his roommate in Owen Hall, and gained 14 pounds and increased his bench press max from 225 pounds to 245 through Purdue's weightlifting and conditioning program.

"I've just been trying to do the little things and I've been working hard," Carroll said. "Hard work pays off and that's just the way I look at it."

n Carroll and the Boilers (1-0) open their home season at 8 p.m. Wednesday against Radford (1-2).

The Boilers' next game after that is against No. 13 Stanford at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Conseco Fieldhouse as part of the John Wooden Tradition, a two-game event named in honor of the legendary former UCLA coach and former Purdue All-American. During last year's Thanksgiving break, Purdue beat Arizona, which was ranked No. 1 at the time, in Conseco Fieldhouse in the same event.

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Sports editor:
Paul Trembacki

Assistant sports editor:
Doug Healey

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