5 days ago
How Matt Painter changed his recruiting philosophy to better Purdue basketball
After Purdue basketball missed the 2013 and '14 NCAA tournaments, coach Matt Painter decided he had to change the way he recruited and built his team.
"The one thing we can fix that we don't want to fix is ourself," he said on the "Athletics of Business" podcast.
Painter decided to eschew some of the common approaches to recruiting, such as telling a player only what he wants to hear.
"(I'd be) giving a dissertation, and part of me is saying, 'What does he want to hear?' We are in the business of selling," he said.
Painter's adjustments have yielded a national runner-up finish, three seasons featuring a No. 1 national ranking, five Big Ten regular-season championships and 10 NCAA tournament appearances in the past 11 years.
Painter said he doesn't promise minutes or a certain number of shots per game, just the opportunity to earn them.
"If you're going to be one of our top three scorers, here's how we're going to use you," he said. "If you don't, then you're going to have to blend in with those top two or three scorers from an offensive standpoint."
The common approach involves revealing hard truths such as that after a season has begun.
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"I go, 'Have any other coaches said this to you?' They'll be like, 'No.' I say, 'They will, but just not until November 1st.' I used to be one of those guys," he said.
Painter said his assistant coaches have joked that that approach won't yield nationally ranked recruits, but he has reeled in players who are right for Purdue over the long term.
"That's really helped us," he said. "We're not under-promising. We're just trying to be really, really honest.
"You're not going to come in, and we're just going to roll you the ball more than Zach Edey. … I didn't promise him anything."
Edey split time with Trevion Williams his first two seasons before being a two-time National Player of the Year.
Purdue hasn't relied on transfers to nearly the degree that other high-major programs have in recent seasons, even with more liberal transfer rules and greater NIL opportunities. The Boilermakers have two incoming transfers for 2025-26: Oscar Cluff from South Dakota State and Liam Murphy from North Florida. Their 2024-25 team had no transfers and the 2023-24 national runner-up team had one: Lance Jones from Southern Illinois.
LINK TO FULL PODCAST HERE
Painter, who turns 55 years old in Aug. 27, said he uses the DiSC personality testing system to evaluate a recruit's fit for Purdue, on top of his transcript and statistics.
He believes this kind of evaulation will help draw players who will remain for multiple seasons.
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"In the portal, people look for talent. I'm looking for production through growth," Painter said. "They're looking at immediate satisfaction."
Painter takes recruiting rankings with a pinch — perhaps a pound — of salt.
"Stereotypically, what happens is people look at some of the people we're recruiting as not being good enough (compared to other high-major programs). It's actually a joke because when they rank, people that go to those blue bloods (and get an artificial boost in rankings). When we take guys, they go off of who offered them, rather than digging in."
Painter will pursue highly ranked recruits (he noted Caleb Swanigan and Carsen Edwards), but said he sometimes argues with other coaches who stress talent above all else.
Painter's approach: "Lean toward production. You want productive players. You want productive people."
Painter said he learned a valuable lesson from former Purdue football coach Joe Tiller: "Don't be blinded by what you don't have."
"There are things out there screaming, 'Don't take me,'" Painter said.
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Painter said preseason work begins in the summer with full practices as opposed to endless scrimmages, learning the nomenclature of the program, video study and quizzes. (He said one is planned for next week.)
He described a drill in which players go through 20 competitive sets on the court, identifying their assignments in each. Players get points for setting up correctly, but will repeat the drills when they are incorrect.
"You've got to treat it like a class," he said.
When recruits are hesitant about that approach, Painter tells them: "If you like basketball, you'll put the time in."
Painter also discusses the roles of his assistant coaches, what he learned from mentor Gene Keady, and why isn't as combative on the sideline ("Coach Keady is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, but if you watched him coach a game, you'd think he's a borderline madman."), bouncing back from an NCAA tournament loss to a No. 16 seed and what keeps him motivated entering his 21st season on the Purdue sideline.
