Keady admits to regrets amid final days

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Purdue coach Gene Keady hugged some of his players and thanked many of his friends for their help during his 25 seasons with the Boilermakers.\nBut Keady also admitted during the team's annual banquet Monday that he had some regrets amid what are likely his final coaching days.\n"I'm sorry we didn't get to the Final Four. I'm sorry we didn't get to the national championship game," Keady told the crowd. "It's something we all wanted to do. We got up the mountain and get pretty close to the top, but we kind of slid back down that mountain. We're going to get it back with Matt Painter and his staff."\nPainter, who played for Keady during 1989-93, has spent the past year as an assistant to Keady and will take over as head coach next season.\nThe Boilermakers have struggled throughout Keady's final season and are 7-20 going into their game Thursday against Iowa in the first round of the Big Ten tournament in Chicago.\nKeady talked at length about his first coaching and teaching position -- $4,200 a year at Beloit High School in Kansas -- and how he spent 22 years climbing the coaching ladder before arriving at Purdue in 1980.\n"I'm not sure that basketball was the smartest thing I should have done, because it didn't pay very well for a lot of years," Keady said. "If I had been like some of my buddies and sold insurance, I would probably be a millionaire now. But I didn't. I stayed with coaching and got lucky."\nThe selection of junior forward Carl Landry as the team's most valuable player was announced during the banquet.\nLandry averaged 18.2 points and 7.1 rebounds this season before he suffered a torn knee ligament on Feb. 26. He is to undergo surgery Friday.\nLandry transferred to Purdue this season after playing two years at Vincennes University junior college, giving him a bond with Keady, who played junior college football in Kansas.\n"Coming from a junior college to Division I, it's kind of hard," Landry said. "You appreciate the things that you have. I respect coach Keady for the hard times he had, and now, he is a great coach and a legend. I respect him for the person that he is"