Maybe I should weight in about my perspective about our coach. I think Painter has made mistakes in recruiting and in game management. Those posters who point them out are not wrong.
However, he has also made the right decisions in recruting and in game management far more frequently than he has made the wrong descisions. I could sight specifics, but I think most of you undertand what I am talking about. Matt Painter is certainly open to criticism, but it should be a balanced perspective. Basketball is not an exact science, and what worked before might not work the next time. All coaches make mistakes.
My perspective is that Matt is learning daily how to do a better job at his profession. He will probabaly coach at least another 20 years, and he is along way from his peak. Those of you that picture Matt's performance as an unchanging action in each game are not seeing with real insight into the game. People talk about Matt's ceiling??? How could they know that, since he has improved every year in how he approaches the game. (Please don't look at the record of his teams to disprove. Improvements are not always reflected in the W/L column. For example, the recent rule changes directly affected defensive teams like Purdue).
Each year his teams have played better, often being amoung the nation's leaders in several catagories (for example, rebounding, assists per basket, defense, etc.). That sort of top-20 perforrnace does not happen by accident. My evaluation today is that the coach is exceeding average, but still has several areas to improve on.
Frankly, his 2017 class is the watershed event in his long term career at Purdue, IMHO.
I, 100% agree with your last statement.
