Purdue legend Gene Keady coming to Michigan State to pay respects to Jud Heathcote

LANSING — Gene Keady is not looking forward to the 20-degree temperatures in East Lansing.

Purdue’s winningest coach said he will deal with it though. He isn’t going to miss Saturday’s matchup between his former school and No. 4 Michigan State. And it has little to do with the game itself.

Keady is coming to honor one of his good friends, the late Jud Heathcote. It’s also alumni weekend. And believe it or not, Keady is looking forward to spending time with the players he once did battle with during so many heated Purdue-MSU contests.

And there is one more reason.

“Tom invited me,” Keady chuckled, referring to MSU coach Tom Izzo. “That’s good enough for me. I wouldn’t go there unless he invited me.”

Keady won 512 games in his 25 years as the head man in West Lafayette. In January 2016, Izzo passed him on the Big Ten's all-time win list to move to second behind only Bobby Knight (661).

Friday afternoon, Izzo, who has now won 567 games, is picking up his former rival and friend from the airport.

“It will be nice seeing everyone I know,” Keady said Wednesday afternoon from his home in Myrtle Beach. “I’m looking forward to seeing Izzo and Jud’s ex-players. Steve Smith played for us in the Olympics. I liked them all.

“Plus, it’s a big game.”

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Keady was a part of plenty of those during his tenure in West Lafayette.

One still gets him worked up — a 72-70 loss at Breslin Center in 1990.

“Oh, you mean the one when the referees cheated us,” he joked. “(MSU) fouled the hell out of Tony Jones that day, and Jud even said they did that on purpose. I have to say they cheated. It makes me feel better.”

On that foggy February afternoon, a sold-out crowd waived white pompoms. When the final buzzer sounded, the MSU student section rushed the floor. The Spartans were Big Ten champions. Purdue finished second.

Keady said weather caused the Boilermakers to land in Detroit, and they had to bus to East Lansing. They got in very late. His players were exhausted. He called it a bad break and said those things happen.

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He also offered up a comment most coaches would never admit.

“If I got beat by anyone in the Big Ten, I didn’t feel too bad if it was Jud,” Keady said. “No matter who you get beat by, you feel bad. But I was never as uptight if it was to him.”

That’s a small glimpse into the respect he had for Heathcote.

Heathcote died on Aug. 28 in Spokane, Washington. He was 90. Heathcote faced off against Keady’s Boilermaker teams for 15 straight seasons, going 11-18 overall. Only twice did Heathcote’s Spartans sweep the season series.

Keady didn’t share specific stories about his longtime friend. He said Heathcote was always the storyteller anyway. He said he was fun to be around and always had a new joke to share. He also praised Heathcote for his integrity and deep love of the game.

“He was good for the game,” Keady said. “He was one of my best friends in coaching.”

Keady, who is maybe best known for his infamous jet-black combover hairstyle, compiled an impressive resume at Purdue, reaching the NCAA tournament 18 times and being named Big Ten Coach of the Year seven times.

He retired from Purdue in 2005 with six conference titles and the same number of National Coach of the Year awards to go along with a pair of Elite Eight appearances (1994, 2000).

But Purdue never made it to the Final Four during his tenure.

And, when you live in the shadow of Knight two hours down the road in Bloomington, that doesn’t make it any more tolerable.

It’s still a sore subject for Keady.

“Yeah, I think it bothers anyone who is competitive,” Keady said, adding that he did coach in a Final Four in 1978 as an assistant under Eddie Sutton at Arkansas. “It’s a high goal and something I always wanted to do. I always blamed me. I blame myself. I didn’t coach good enough. I don’t know, it’s just one of those things that happens. I had a lot of success in 55 years of coaching though. We won a lot of games.”

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To make matters worse, then Izzo came along, Keady joked.

Keady said he isn’t shocked about the heights Heathcote’s self-appointed successor has taken the Spartan basketball program. He met Izzo when he was a young assistant under Heathcote. He said they all used to run around together at Final Fours. They were “close staffs,” Keady said.

He said his longtime assistant Bruce Weber is to him what Izzo was to Heathcote. A winner.

Izzo and Keady faced off 18 times over a decade. MSU holds the 11-7 lead in those meetings. One of the more memorable ones was late in 1997. Izzo was coming off back-to-back subpar campaigns in his first two seasons at the helm in East Lansing. He was 33-28 overall with a .500-mark in league play. Izzo was starting to feel the heat and his team was opening up Big Ten play at Mackey Arena.

Not an ideal situation.

Although Keady said he doesn’t remember much about that specific game, the name Mateen Cleaves still brings back headaches.

MSU defeated the three-time Big Ten champions convincingly, 74-57. Purdue was ranked No. 5 in the nation at the time and a prohibitive favorite to win their fourth straight title. It didn’t happen thanks to a foursome nicknamed “The Flintstones.”

Izzo and the Spartans finished the season 22-8 and shared the conference title with Illinois.

They made it to the Sweet 16 that year. Two years later, the Spartans won it all.

“They were pretty good,” Keady said of Morris Peterson, Charlie Bell, Antonio Smith and Cleaves.

And Izzo, well, he is OK, too, Keady joked.

“I thought he’d be great, and he is great,” he said. “He’s been to the Final Four, what, seven times? Oh my God. He deserves it. He has integrity and works hard.”

After Izzo passed him in the record books, Keady called to say congratulations — and drop a little humor in the process.

“I said, ‘Why didn’t you recruit like that for Jud?’ He didn’t think that was funny,” Keady laughed.

Now, more than two years into his retirement — he says he has retired four times and is leaving the door open to a fifth at 81 years old — Keady says he is enjoying the simple life on the beach and still watching a ton of basketball. Twelve of his former assistants are head coaches around the country. He travels to watch their teams and always keeps an eye on his beloved Boilermakers.

And make no mistake, this meeting between the two top-5 schools is a must-watch. Even if you have to deal with freezing temperatures, Keady said.

He called this rivalry a special one. And a new chapter will be written inside Breslin Center Saturday afternoon.

“First of all, it’s always pretty important,” he said of the MSU-Purdue matchup. “It was typically a chance to move up in the standings and the competitiveness helped your confidence and national rankings. The fans were great, too. They were loud. It’s hard to win there.”

Contact Cody Tucker at (517) 377-1070 or cjtucker@lsj.com and follow him on Twitter @CodyTucker_LSJ.

BIG TEN BASKETBALL

WHO: No. 4 Michigan State (23-3, 11-2) vs. No. 3 Purdue (23-2, 12-0)

WHEN: Saturday, Feb. 10 at 4 p.m.

WHERE: Breslin Center, East Lansing

TV/ Radio:ESPN/ Spartan Sports Network