Purdue basketball coach Matt Painter didn’t want to do it.
The last thing the veteran coach wanted to do was climb up the ladder and cut down the net after winning the Midwest regional Sunday, defeating Tennessee, 72-66.
But, he gave in to the faithful and his Purdue basketball team.
“I don’t normally do it. I don’t normally cut the net down when we win championships and stuff. It’s kind of not my deal. But they said I had to do it,” Painter told the media after the win.
As for what he felt at the top of the ladder, Painter said, “Nothing.”
“Just you get a lot of shit from people on the other side, whether it’s rivals or other people in the league, and that’s their job, right? They’re your rivals, you go against them, and that’s part of it. One thing I appreciated, especially from last year, was the people that supported us from Purdue. That was to me, those are the people that are in your corner no matter what. I just appreciate the Purdue faithful that stayed confident that we could get the job done while I was still the head coach,” Painter said.
He has definitely gotten the job done.
Final four has been a long time coming for Painter
Perhaps, nobody understands the fact that it had been 44 years since the last Final Four better than Painter.
He heard about it as a player.
He heard about it as an assistant.
And, he had heard about it enough as a head coach.
In addition, there had been plenty of promising seasons that didn’t live up to expectations at the conclusion.
“To be able to get to a Final Four is a dream come true for me as a coach and for these guys as players. Just grateful to be in this position,” Painter said.
All that is now in the past, as Painter and Purdue basketball broke through the glass ceiling and punched a ticket to Phoenix.
For Painter, the journey has included him being true to himself and how the game of basketball should be played.
“Just be strong in your convictions in terms of how you think the game should be played. We base what we do offensively off our individual players and just try to play to those strengths. And just being able to stay with it. Obviously we lost last year, and we just had to be better at what we do and do a better job at taking care of the basketball. I stress that all the time. We work on it,” Painter said.
Seeing with his own eyes has been beneficial for Painter
Furthermore, Painter’s journey has included a lot of delegating and seeing things with his own eyes.
“We had some guys that didn’t shoot the ball as well the year before where I recruited, I had watched, I had seen in different environments really shoot the ball well. So I had believed in their ability and their work ethic. A lot of times, I don’t sit there and actually believe in a person as much as I believe in their work. I delegate a lot of things so I can watch. So when we break down things, we meet as a staff. I delegate it because I don’t want to be a part of it to where I’m not seeing the other end of the court, I’m not seeing people because I’m passing or doing stuff,” he said.
Watching includes how the players carry themselves during good and bad.
“But I also want to watch how they carry themselves. A lot of people don’t like that cocky high school kid and it gets under that skin. That cocky high school kid is a college player. Deep down he believes in himself. You have to have that. And we have a lot of guys sitting up here that has those qualities,” Painter said.
Final Four is also for those who helped put Painter on map
Immediately following the win Sunday, Painter shared a moment with former Purdue basketball standout Robbie Hummel.
And, while it looked, on the surface, as a moment between coach and former player, it was much more than that. The moment signified the trust and faith Hummel put in Painter and vice versa during his recruitment and career with the Boilermakers.
“More than anything, you appreciate the guys that have played for you, and you appreciate that they had opportunities to go other places and they chose your school or they chose you, however you want to look at it,” Painter said.
In the moment that followed the win, Painter thought back to the likes of Hummel, E’Twaun Moore and others, who opted for West Lafayette over other cities with top notch basketball programs.
“We weren’t very good when that class chose us. Our facilities were just okay. That’s being nice. And we’ve really done a great job in the last 15 years of upgrading what we have. When someone signs at your school and they have a lot of options, like E’Twaun Moore, JaJuan Johnson and Robbie Hummel, and you got last place in the Big Ten and you’re 35, 36 years old, and I hadn’t done anything. So for our ability to get those guys and they believed in us. We obviously got close, we got to Sweet 16, but we didn’t get further. In their career, we won the league once and got second three times. It just means a lot to a lot of people, but for someone like that, they deserve to — you have guilt, there’s no doubt about that. You have guilt because Gene Keady deserved to coach in a Final Four. He deserved to play in one, and you’re getting ready to go to one,” Painter said.
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