GLENDALE, Ariz. — In this new era of college sports where players often enter the transfer portal in pursuit of dollars, Lance Jones was in pursuit of success. So, when Purdue coach Matt Painter offered Jones a spot shortly after he announced he was leaving Southern Illinois after four standout years, the 6-foot-1 guard pounced on the opportunity.
“Purdue had the No. 1 player [Zach Edey], all of these pieces and it was closer to home,” Jones, who grew up in Evanston, Illinois, said. “It wasn’t a difficult decision at all.”
While the dominant storyline of this year’s NCAA championship game features an old-school battle of dominant bigs — the 7-foot-4 Edey facing 7-2 Donovan Clingan of UConn — Jones hopes to step into a strong supporting character role as the Boilermakers attempt to win the school’s first NCAA national championship.
Jones scored 14 points in Purdue’s 63-50 semifinal win against NC State on Saturday. The importance of that stat: The Boilermakers are undefeated this season (15-0) when he scores 14 or more points in a game.
“Oh, really?” Jones said in the locker room after the NC State win when told of his scoring impact on the team’s success. “My confidence shooting comes with the work I put in. It’s just about me trusting my work and just letting it fly, knowing that my teammates have confidence in me.”
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Jones is used to being a scorer. At Southern Illinois, where the offense flowed through him for four seasons, he was one of the all-time leaders in points (1,514, 12th in program history) and 3-pointers made (205, third in school history).
But Painter didn’t recruit Jones to be a scorer at Purdue, where the offense flows through Edey. He was attracted by the defensive toughness of Jones, who was named to the all-defensive team of the Missouri Valley Conference in each of his last two seasons.
“We put Lance on points [point guards]. We put him on 2s [shooting guards]. At times we’ll put him on a 3 [small forward],” Painter said. “So that flexibility really helps. He’s been great for us.”
Equally impressive to Painter? That Jones didn’t enter the transfer portal with his hands out.
“He didn’t talk about name, image, and likeness one time when he made a decision,” Painter said. “His thing was winning. His thing was getting into the NCAA tournament, trying to win a Big Ten championship. That jumped out right away.”
There’s always a risk of fitting in, especially transferring from a mid-major to a major program expected to compete for a national championship. What helped Jones acclimate to Purdue was the team’s four-game, 11-day trip over the summer to Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic.
“We spent a lot of time together, and I was able to get the extra work with the guys and see how they worked out,” Jones said. “So, yes, I think that trip through Europe helped me.”
That trip made him feel a part of the team.
Tragedy struck Jones and his family two weeks after the team returned to Europe when his father, Robert Jones, died after a brief illness. On the day of his funeral, a chartered bus full of Jones’ teammates pulled into Evanston.
That solidarity, from a team that he hadn’t even played a game with, made Jones feel like he was a part of more than a team.
“What does that say about Purdue,” Lance’s mother, Katie Jones, said in an interview with the Big Ten network. “They are family.”
Jones will be surrounded by family — and his father’s spirit — when he steps onto the arena floor at State Farm Stadium.
“I knew we had a chance of winning the Big Ten and making a run in March Madness,” Jones said. “But to get here, to the championship game? This is something I could never have imagined.”
