ChoiceBeef, I think you are correct about Painter not being wiling to deal with handlers, but I also think there are a couple of other factors that play a role in recruiting athletes to Purdue.
The first of these is that, quite aside from admission requirements (which are pretty much the same across the public institutions in the Big Ten), are the expectations for academic performance once you get here. My colleagues and I in the Purdue professoriate cut no slack for anybody, regardless of his or her athletic standing. Several years ago I had a men's basketball player who, the previous season had been All-Big Ten. The fellow got a "D" in my class. I'm in my fourth decade as a faculty member at Purdue, and I've never encountered a colleague who would entertain the thought of setting a lower bar for an athlete.
The second factor is one that I've come to realize relatively recently. I think prospective recruits know that if you are going to play men's basketball at Purdue you are going to have to be physically and mentally tough. Think of Haarms a couple of games ago laying on the floor, clutching his knee in pain; Painter didn't even look at him. Last game, Eastern collides with an opponent and is on the floor; he continues playing. Kramer, Lewis Jackson, and on and on, enough said. The upshot of this is that there are some potential recruits who have no interest in Purdue from the get-go because they know they just aren't that tough (or are afraid of finding out that they're just not that tough, or of being exposed for not being that tough).
Having said all that, I think that Painter recruits quite well, as our current roster makes clear.
