As the son of a longtime basketball coach, Tommy Luce can understand the message that those in charge are trying to get across to their players. As someone who hadn’t been born yet when Joe Bradburn started coaching high school basketball, he’s also able to understand the mindset of today’s young players.
Luce, who earned cult hero status as a walk-on player at Purdue the last four seasons, is dipping his toe into the world of coaching this winter as one of Bradburn’s assistants at Greenwood.
Bradburn goes back a long way with Tommy’s father Joe Luce, who has coached at Marion, Richmond and Jeffersonville, and he didn’t hesitate to accept when Tommy — who moved to the area to work as a sales rep with Shelby Materials after graduating from Purdue — reached out and offered to pitch in whenever he could this past offseason.
That was an easy offer for Bradburn to accept. He’s long been a fan of what Luce brought to the table as a player and was happy to add those qualities to his coaching staff.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryLuce’s celebrity status — ESPN anchor Scott Van Pelt dubbed him the “King of Mackey” during his time at Purdue — didn’t change that. Bradburn doesn’t view Luce as some Rudy Ruettiger knockoff.
“He’s more than a Rudy for me,” Bradburn said. “He’s easy to embrace, just a humble young man that works hard. He knows how to keep teams together, and the intricacies and the details of the psyche of guys in the locker room, and roommates and things like that. He was phenomenal with that at Purdue and everybody appreciated what he offered.
“He’s a natural for coaching if that’s what he wants to do.”
He also appears to be a natural fit for this Greenwood team. The Woodmen worked their way to a 19-6 record and a sectional championship the grimy way, leading all of Indiana’s Class 4A teams in scoring defense by a good bit. They don’t care if it’s pretty, just so long as it works — and Luce, who’s been known to stroll into the locker room fresh off the job in a well-worn pair of work boots, seems to mesh well with that ethos.
Not surprisingly, the Greenwood players have welcomed him with open arms.
Part of his appeal stems from his youth; Luce was just a player himself at the collegiate level earlier this year, so it’s a bit easier for him to relate to high school kids than it might be for someone like Bradburn.
Some of the Woodmen were quick to point that out.
“I feel like Tommy helps a lot, because he’s a new generation coach, you know?” Greenwood senior Rasheed Elemikan said. “No offense to our other coaches, but our coaches have coached for a while, and basketball’s changing. Tommy, he helps translate the style of basketball from what (Bradburn) expects and helps translate to what we should do.”
“He definitely does bridge the gap between generations,” junior Brock Kincaid added. “He kind of knows what we think as a player, and he also sees what the coaches think, so I think he can bring those two together really well.”
Luce has embraced that role as the good cop to Bradburn’s bad cop. He’s spent enough of his life around basketball coaches to get their side of the equation, but he’s also been on the other side recently enough to grasp the players’ viewpoint.
The word “translator” came up numerous times when talking about Luce’s impact on the team in practices — both from Bradburn and the players. It’s a description he’s more than fine with.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do, just be a players’ coach for them,” Luce said. “Be a translator, someone that they can come to a little different than coach Bradburn or (assistant coach Mario Buscemi).”
While that dynamic should prove beneficial, the Woodmen aren’t looking to make wholesale changes this winter. Bradburn has gone to great lengths to build a selfless culture, and he enters his fourth season with that firmly in place.
Getting younger players to buy in to an unsexy style of play is a lot easier once they see that it can lead to success.
“This year’s actually been a ton easier, because I feel like most of the guys understand the roles that we have to fit,” Elemikan said. “They’ve been in practice last year — they see how, as a group, as a team, we work hard, so they know that they have to work hard to get playing time.
“The younger guys understand now, because we set a tone last year that this is a winning school.”
By all indications, Luce is in perfect harmony with that tone.
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1. Which nonconference opponent are you most looking forward to facing?
I would probably say Center Grove, just to have that rematch; it’s a rivalry, and that’s the first time we’d beat them in a really long time last year, so we’re definitely going to come out ready to play and they’re going to come out ready to play us.
2. Which unknown player on this team will become a household name this winter?
Definitely Carter Campbell. He’s like a 6-4, 6-5 sophomore, and he can almost play all five positions, I think. He can stretch the floor and he can also play inside if we need him to.
3. Given the ongoing pandemic, how concerned are you about the season being interrupted in some way?
That’s definitely always going to be in the back of our heads; you see the numbers keep going up and stuff. But there’s only really one thing we can do — we’ve just got to keep practicing, keep playing like we’re going to have a season and just give it our all with the time that we’ve got.
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Head coach: Joe Bradburn
Last season: 19-6, won Class 4A sectional championship
Top returnees: Rasheed Elemikan and Ty Moore, seniors; Brock Kincaid, junior
Key newcomers: Charlie Brooks and David Young, seniors; Noah Apgar and Gavin Ruppert, juniors; Carter Campbell, sophomore
Outlook: The Woodmen lost a lot of talent from a gritty outfit that led Class 4A in scoring defense by a wide margin, but they still have two of the county’s top returning players in Elemikan and Kincaid. Who fills out the lineup around them is still a major question mark, but folks are high on Campbell, one of several football players with a chance to crack the rotation. Bradburn has established a selfless culture at Greenwood, and last year’s successes have made it much easier to get buy-in across the board. Where the scoring will come from is a question yet to be answered, but this team should have the same physicality and toughness that last year’s did, and points should again be hard for opponents to come by.
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