Coach Matt Painter's ability to adapt game plans has Purdue returning to Sweet 16

Matt Painter has seen and done just about everything in two decades as Purdue's coach.

He's won nearly 500 games, five conference regular-season titles and two Big Ten tourney crowns. He's been to the Final Four, a national championship game and is one of two coaches to lose to a No. 16 seed in March Madness. He even finished last in the league — twice.

Yet in an era of college basketball where the only true constant seems to be change, Painter remains a model of consistency because of his ability to win with a simple, proven philosophy and an uncanny ability to adapt to Purdue's strengths and weaknesses.

"It's a really unique deal," the 54-year-old Painter said before last week's first-round NCAA Tournament victory. “When we win, people say we’re great at developing players, and when we lose, we don’t go in the (transfer) portal enough. It’s kind of like being married, right? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

The results speak for themselves, though.

Purdue has finished among the Big Ten's top four in 10 of the last 11 seasons, been to 10 straight NCAA tourneys and reached the Sweet 16 in six of the last eight. The Boilermakers (24-11) are now a win away from their fourth straight 25-win season and a return trip to the Elite Eight, this time without two-time national player of the year Zach Edey.

Fourth-seeded Purdue faces top-seeded Houston (32-4) in the second Midwest Region semifinal Friday in Indianapolis, about an hour drive from the school's campus.

The change

How has Painter stayed this good for this long?

He learned some tough lessons after the maturing “Baby Boilers” took him to his first two Sweet 16s in 2009 and 2010. Purdue lost second-round games in 2011 and 2012 then missed the tourney completely in 2013 and 2014 with sub-.500 conference records.

So Painter changed directions and reverted to some things he'd learned from other coaches he worked with and played for.

“At Purdue, it's don't look at what other people are doing, don't get to that point. Just look at what's the best way to recruit,” he said. “I've yet to meet a really good coach with bad players. You've got to get good players, but you've got to get good people and it's that combination. We lean more toward skill because we struggled the other way.”

The results didn't exactly change overnight.

While Purdue returned to tourney player after a two-year absence, some thought Painter's teams were postseason underachievers because of first-round losses to Cincinnati in 2015 and Little Rock in 2016 — long before Fairleigh Dickinson in 2023.

Different styles

The perception of Painter changed when a balanced, experienced roster finally got the Boilermakers back to the Sweet 16 in 2017 and 2018. Those two teams seemed eerily reminiscent of the 2009 and 2010 Purdue teams.

Since then, Painter — with the exception of the no-tournament COVID-19 season in 2020 and the embarrassing loss to Fairleigh Dickinson in 2023 — has found different ways to win.

In 2019, the Boilermakers relied heavily on sharp-shooting guard Carsen Edwards. In 2022, Purdue leaned heavily on power forward Trevion Williams and future NBA lottery pick Jaden Ivey. Last year, it was the 7-foot-4 Edey who helped Purdue make its first Final Four since 1980.

Now, they're back in the Sweet 16 with another different look thanks to the dynamic play of point guard Braden Smith, the Big Ten player of the year, and the emergence of forward Trey Kaufman-Renn, a unanimous all-conference selection.

“I’m proud that the older guys get to experience this without one of the best basketball players in college basketball history,” Kaufman-Renn said after beating McNeese in Saturday's second-round game. “I know they had something to prove.”

It's not by chance, either.

Smith beat out his current teammate Fletcher Loyer for the coveted 2022 Indiana Mr. Basketball Award, but Painter was the first Power 4 coach to offer Smith a scholarship.

Two days later, he accepted and that next March, they all endured the loss to Fairleigh Dickinson, which fueled last year's deep tourney run. Now, they're on another quest — to bring home the national championship they lost to UConn last April.

“I think it’s just the confidence we've continued to have in each other in this locker room and the coaching,” Loyer said Saturday. “We were playing at one point our best basketball (of the season) and we can get back to that point if we rebound."

Back then, the Edey-less Boilermakers were a top-10 mainstay and they could regain that image if they continue to play with the edge they showed against two lower seeds last weekend. But that's all Painter ever wanted, a chance to show old-school basketball still works in an era dominated by transfers, NIL deals and 3-point shooters.

“We've been able to develop and make guys better, but we've just tried to get really good skill,” Painter said. “We've always been able to get size, for whatever reason. Now we have a really good point guard to go along with that. We've had some good point guards not to the level of him, and we just try to play off of our best players.”

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