To say Bruce Weber is familiar with Matt Painter’s style of basketball is to severely understate the latest chapter in a history of Big Ten mentoring.

Painter and Weber’s relationship has been that of player-and-coach, assistant-and-head coach, and student-and-teacher. But when the Boilermakers head to Champaign to face the No. 8 Illini on Saturday, the close friends will – for a few hours at least – become opponents.F

“We’ll smile and laugh before the game and laugh after and enjoy each other,” Weber said, “but in the middle you’ve got to battle.”

Weber spent 18 seasons as an assistant coach at Purdue, where Painter is now in his first season as head coach. Weber and Gene Keady, Painter’s predecessor, recruited the Muncie, Ind. native to play guard for the Boilermakers.

“Matt had a room in his house that was all red, all Hoosiers stuff,” Weber said. “I think his goal was to go to Indiana.”

Luckily for the Boilermakers, Painter was a late bloomer who became a top recruit after Indiana’s was done offering scholarships. He signed to play for Keady and Weber, and averaged 4.5 points, appearing in 109 games during college.

“He was a good player but he wasn’t really athletic,” Weber said. “He makes fun of himself and his vertical, his quickness.”

After graduating, Painter served as an assistant coach at several colleges throughout the 1990s. When Weber signed on as Southern Illinois’ head coach in 1998, one of his first moves was to bring his former player on as assistant.

When Weber stepped in as Illinois head coach in 2003, Painter was promoted to lead the Salukis.

And when Keady announced he would be retiring after the 2004-05 season, Painter was hired back to the Boilermakers and prepared to take over for his former coach.

Painter’s move back to the Big Ten meant a change in the two coaches’ relationship. The two can no longer swap recruiting stories or talk about the game as much. But they still talk on a weekly basis.

“When he was at SIU I probably talked to him every day, sometimes twice a day,” Weber said. “When he got the Purdue job it was more just for advice.

“You can be friends and things, but both of us have our jobs on the line. You can’t share as many ideas.”

Weber is now 3-1 against the Boilermakers, and will likely be 4-1 at the end of Saturday’s matchup. Purdue is just 7-11 overall and 1-6 in the Big Ten, having struggled this season under subpar recruiting classes and injuries to key players.

“I would not wish that upon anybody. It’s a disaster,” Weber said. “When it seems like nothing else can go wrong you get another injury, another problem. He’s a young coach, but he’s getting a lot of learning experience in one year.”

It should not be difficult for Illinois to extend its school-record 33-game winning streak. But the Illini will have a little extra motivation – Purdue is the only visitor in the last four seasons to walk out of the Assembly Hall with a win.

“I always talk about learning from other people’s failures, learning from your own failures, learning from history,” Weber said. “Dee and James, that’s their only home loss of their careers. One of the goals I’ve put in front of them is to keep that their only home loss.”