Mark Montieth: Lance Jones a perfect match for Purdue

Finding the perfect grad transfer is a treacherous task for a college coach. The process is essentially an online version of speed dating in which both sides must make commitments quickly and with fingers crossed that they’ll find instant compatibility.

That’s why what’s brewing between Lance Jones and Purdue is the feel-good story of the college basketball season. He’s found a perfect marriage as a starter for the second-ranked team in the country while having a blossoming romance with a fan base that once viewed him skeptically but has since fallen in love.

All in the wake of a family tragedy.

Jones has started every game for Purdue, part of a five-man unit that has remained unchanged through Purdue’s 24 games heading into Thursday evening’s encounter with Minnesota. He has averaged 12.8 points, second-best behind Zach Edey and just one point fewer than his norm last season for mid-major Southern Illinois, despite playing fewer minutes and taking fewer shots. He also has better shooting percentages than last season from everywhere a basketball can be shot.

Stats don’t tell it all, however. Jones has injected a smile into a team that suffered a disappointing first-round loss to a 16-seed in last season’s NCAA tournament. It can be debated whether Jones’ teammates needed that, but the fan base certainly did. His positive demeanor has been a mood-changer.

“He has a lot of fun playing, and he’s very competitive,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “He finds joy in playing for the team and competing and doing his job. He’s serious about it, but he makes his hard work fun.”

“He’s been a joy to coach,” assistant coach Paul Lusk added.

Joy isn’t a word often used to describe a basketball player’s approach, but it applies to a select few who can lift the spirits of teammates. Magic Johnson was one. The Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton is another. So is Jones, which explains why so many fans were standing in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant on Sunday.

The three Indiana locations of Fayetteville, Arkansas-based Slim Chickens have a promotion offering a free chicken sandwich to ticket-holding fans in Mackey Arena the day after a player from the opposing team misses both attempts on a single trip to the foul line. Indiana’s Trey Galloway accommodated them in Purdue’s victory over the Hoosiers on Saturday, so there was free food to be had on Sunday. But most of those in the line that snaked through the West 86th Street restaurant, out the front door and around to the other side beyond the drive-thru window were there to get an autograph from and photo with Jones.

Some came from great distances, and many arrived well before the scheduled 1 p.m. start time. Jones was supposed to be finished at 3 p.m., but he stayed an extra half hour, risking writer’s cramp to accommodate every fan. He even obliged a few more stragglers while waiting for his “postgame meal” to arrive.

“I love the joy you bring,” said a man who was among the last in line.

Win-win-win

That word again. And he wasn’t the only fan to bring it—or a synonym—up, according to Emily Peterman. She is the senior manager of business development for Purdue Sports Properties, an increasingly important figure in today’s college sports landscape, in which athletes can be compensated for use of their name, image and likeness. She had arrived before Jones, called to warn him of the scene awaiting him and took him in through a back door to create less commotion inside. He still received rowdy cheers when he took a seat at a corner table reserved for his appearance. She stood by his table to direct traffic and to take a photo for all the fans who wanted one, which was everyone.

NIL is still in its infancy and ever evolving, but this was Exhibit 1A of how it is intended to work.

Jones also has earned money off the sales of a T-shirt that pays tribute to the dance routine he performs in sync with Purdue’s students to the instrumental Finnish song “Sandstorm” before the start of the second half at each home game. He’s also received an electric bicycle. Sunday’s appearance was his first public NIL event, but there likely will be more. The turnout wasn’t tabulated, but it numbered well into the hundreds.

Jones profited, and so did the restaurant. Ira Sweazey, district manager for Slim Chickens in Indiana—other locations are in West Lafayette and Westfield—said the store grossed about $6,000 in sales up to the time Jones’ appearance ended, about double that of a normal business day. Fans claimed about 225 free sandwiches, as well.

The fans went home happy, too. One woman at the next table said she had arrived two hours early to get a prime position. Another family drove up from Nashville, Tennessee. Christy Stallings-Shoemake, a former Purdue Golden Girl baton twirler, and her husband, Todd, brought their son, Jackson. They drove to Columbus, Indiana, the previous day, arriving about 1 a.m., then completed the trip Sunday morning, arriving about noon.

She and her husband consider Jones a role model for their son.

“We’ve just really enjoyed watching him leave everything on the floor,” she said. “He gives it 100%, and that’s what we want to instill in our child.”

Jones took it all in with equal degrees of pleasure and surprise.

“I wasn’t expecting it to turn out like this,” he said afterward, smiling.

A better opportunity

That lone sentence summarizes the reasons Jones is a popular teammate and a fan favorite. His humble nature and joyful spirit have meshed with his aggressive play and enabled him to fit seamlessly with a team that returned all its starters from the one that won last season’s Big Ten regular-season championship and postseason conference tournament.

He was lightly recruited out of high school in Evanston, Illinois, receiving just four Division I scholarship offers, two of which were withdrawn after he played below par in an AAU tournament. He chose Southern Illinois over Illinois State and performed reasonably well, finishing as the school’s 12th-all-time-leading scorer, and achieved a degree in sports administration.

He wanted more, though. Southern failed to qualify for the NCAA tournament during his four seasons there, and he wanted an opportunity with a winning program. Truth be told, Painter isn’t a fan of the NCAA rule permitting athletes a fifth year of eligibility as a transfer after playing four seasons, if for no other reason than the hypocrisy behind it. College presidents voted it in under the guise of enabling more student-athletes to graduate or achieve a second degree, but the vast majority do it to continue playing a sport. That applies to Jones, although he hopes to make use of his major in communications at Purdue and become a broadcaster.

He put his name in the portal as a grad transfer and was “shocked” to hear from Purdue in the form of a text from Lusk. He jumped at the offer to visit the campus and meet with the coaches. Purdue, meanwhile, needed an athletic, defensive-minded guard to help avoid a tournament flameout such as it had in its first-round loss to 16-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson last season. Lusk contacted two other guards in the transfer portal, but Jones arrived first and accepted Painter’s offer the moment it was delivered.

The irony of Sunday’s turnout at Slim Chickens is that Jones didn’t care at all about NIL opportunities when he met with Purdue’s coaches. Unlike most athletes who transfer to a major program, he didn’t even bring it up.

“It wasn’t like I was getting anything [at Southern],” he said. “It happened to be an add-on, but I wanted to be here to win and be surrounded by a bunch of winners.”

Rough beginning

The relationship had some rocky moments early on, however. Jones’ father, Bob, suffered a seizure while meeting with Purdue’s coaches and future teammates Zach Edey and Mason Gillis last April, but their caring response helped sell Jones and his mother, Katie, on the program.

Purdue’s fan base was less welcoming. Most of the online comments expressed harsh disappointment that Painter hadn’t landed a player from a more prominent program, someone with better name recognition or flashier stats. The fans didn’t know it, but Jones lived down to their expectations when he joined his new teammates in summer pickup games because he was trying too hard to make a good impression. Then his father died in August, a blow that affected his play on the team’s European trip and in early preseason practices.

“It was hard; it was stressful,” he said. “I wanted to do everything right. I didn’t want to mess up a drill; I didn’t want to mess up a play.”

Once he understood he only needed to play hard and earn Painter’s trust by playing unselfishly, he relaxed and won a starting position. He has eased the defensive and ballhandling burden on sophomore point guard Braden Smith and contributed bursts of offense beyond expectations. He scored 24 points against Michigan, 26 against Northwestern—the hometown college that didn’t recruit him—and 20 against Wisconsin. He had only four points at Rutgers but added 10 rebounds, eight assists and five steals in another victory.

It seems illogical that he has become a better all-around player on a nationally ranked team than he was for a mediocre mid-major, but Painter isn’t surprised, given Jones’ buy-in to perform the dirty work.

“[Former Butler coach] Brad Stevens and I talked about it 20 years ago,” Painter said. “If you’re good, you’re good. If you can play there, you can play here. This kind of proves it.”

But it’s been about more than box-score numbers. Jones is the right player at the right time for Purdue. The program needed him, and he needed the program.

“He’s been terrific,” Lusk said. “He’s always got a smile on his face. He’s brought a lot of positive energy to our locker room, and he’s excited to be here. He has confidence, he has great energy, he has fun … it just appears he enjoys playing basketball and enjoys being a member of the team. He just lightens everybody up when he’s around.”

The bulletin board posts from the offseason doubters have lately been resurrected as a source of comedy as Purdue continues its quest for a repeat Big Ten championship. Its tournament fate remains to be seen, but this rushed marriage has produced a perfect match for all concerned.

Fans included.•

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Montieth, an Indianapolis native, is a longtime newspaper reporter and freelance writer. He is the author of three books: “Passion Play: Coach Gene Keady and the Purdue Boilermakers,” “Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indianapolis,” and “Extra Innings: My Life in Baseball,” with former Indianapolis Indians President Max Schumacher.