Paul Lusk, former MSSU coach, back in Sweet 16 with Purdue

Mar. 27—Paul Lusk was part of a Final Four run in the Division II men's basketball national tournament during the 1999-2000 season. He was an assistant at Missouri Southern State University under head coach Robert Corn at that time, and one of the Lions' leaders was point guard Eddin Santiago.

Now, Lusk is at Purdue University coaching under Matt Painter and has the reining Naismith College Player of the Year Zach Edey leading the Boilermakers. Lusk and company are in the Sweet 16 and are meeting a Gonzaga team that is no stranger to this stage.

The game is set for Friday at 6:39 p.m. in Detroit, Michigan. That's just about a 4 1/2-hour drive from West Lafayette, Indiana — home of the Boilermakers. The game will be on TBS and truTV.

"It's always exciting this time of year," Lusk said. "We're looking to stay alive a little longer in March, and that's always hard to do. It has a lot to do with matchups, it has a lot to do with how you're playing at that time. I feel like we're in a good place. Knock on wood ... I feel like we're relatively healthy and our guys are in a good mindset.

"Obviously, we have Gonzaga on Friday. ... They're a very, very proud program. I believe it's Gonzaga's ninth straight trip to the Sweet 16, so we'll have our hands full."

Purdue has earned a No. 1 seed in consecutive seasons in March Madness and has won a combined 60 games in the past two years — 31 this year. Lusk talked about wanting to do more than win a large number of games, early season tournaments or conference tournaments.

"While we've had all this success; we want to have a deep run in the NCAA tournament," he said. "All you can do is keep putting yourself back in that position, and we've done that."

There's a drive to make it further than the Boilermakers have gone in recent seasons. They've only been to the Elite Eight once since 2000 and that was in the 2018-19 season.

But Purdue also keeps recent Naismith Hall of Fame induction Gene Keady in mind during this time of year. Keady spent 25 seasons at the helm of the program and never reached a Final Four.

"I think here at Purdue we always have him in our thoughts wanting to get to a Final Four for him," Lusk said.

Lusk has reached the Sweet 16 five times at the Division I level — four with Purdue and one with Creighton. He was not around for Purdue's Elite Eight appearance in 2019.

Keady was the head coach of the Boilermakers when Painter was playing for the team.

Lusk spent three seasons as an assistant for Corn at MSSU from 1999-2002. After Southern, Lusk took a head coach job at Division III Dubuque University in Dubuque, Iowa. He did that for a season before moving to Southern Illinois as an assistant.

SIU is where Lusk would connect with Painter for the first time. Painter had an opportunity to eventually be the head coach at his alma mater, so he left his head coaching job with the Salukis and went back to be a Boilermaker in 2004.

He took Lusk along with him, and Painter was the head-coach-in-waiting in '04 as coach Keady was in his final season as head coach at Purdue.

Painter took the reins that next season, and Lusk stayed there with him until 2011 when he returned to Southwest Missouri to lead the Missouri State Bears for seven seasons.

The then-46-year-old head coach was let go by MSU, and he was given an opportunity to be Doug McDermott's assistant at Creighton University from 2018-2021.

Three seasons with the Bluejays and now he and his family are back in West Lafayette wearing the gold and black.

His former mentor Corn is already a basketball fan — of course. Watching the Sweet 16 is a little sweeter when Corn has someone from his coaching tree to cheer on in the national tournament.

"Anytime you have a personal (connection) into something you get into it a lot more," Corn said. "Any time those teams are playing, I pay a little extra attention."

Corn noted that Lusk brought in some offensive schemes and sets that hadn't been used yet before at MSSU, and he could tell then that Lusk was going to be special.

"Another great thing for me was working with my former teammate on coach Corn's staff — Chris Lowery," Lusk said. "We were backcourt mates, we were best of friends, so that was a great experience."

Lowery has now paved his way into the Division I ranks to wind up as an assistant at Northwestern University in Chicago. The ninth-seeded Wildcats won a first-round game over eighth-seeded Florida Atlantic before falling to No. 1 UConn in Round 2.

Part of Lowery and Lusk being special coaches is knowing they won't be around long because they will be able to move on and find another job as they try to advance their career. Corn knew he didn't have long with these two.

"Every coach's dream is to be a head coach. And I always felt like that was part of my responsibility to make sure my assistants, when they got that opportunity to be a head coach, were prepared for it," Corn said. "I knew it wouldn't be long before those guys had opportunities."

Another part of Corn's MSSU tree in the NCAA tournament branches off to former player Kenny Simpson. Simpson played under Corn from 1990-92. His son, KJ Simpson, led the Colorado Buffaloes to an NCAA tournament appearance and an upset of No. 7 Florida in the first round as a No. 10 seed. The Buffaloes fell in the second round of the tournament to Marquette in a close game.

Simpson averaged 19.7 points per game as a junior this year.

Lusk is thankful for his time spent in Joplin.

"I thought that time of my life in general was a great experience," he said. "We loved being at Missouri Southern. Just great memories. I still have a lot of great friends from there."

Lusk admitted there were some tough years early on in his first stint at Purdue with Painter.

In 2004-05, the Boilermakers were just 7-21 overall and 9-19 the next year. Since, they've gone on to be 20-game winners in 14 of 18 seasons. The program reached the NCAA tournament in 15 of those 18 seasons, and Lusk has been around for eight of those trips.

"Just seeing what he's done with the program and where we're at now is quite remarkable," Lusk said. "He's done it the right way. He hasn't taken any shortcuts. He hasn't sold his soul on this level, and he'll continue to do it that way."