Didn’t realize the head coach of the program was forced to play worse players than his better players and it’s not a criticism of him
Luck is a big part of tourney runs - which is why it’s hard to ding Purdue for the Carsen Edwards year, that team got robbed by a miracle shot. It happens.
But last year the luck broke Purdue’s way. You catch a team outside the Kenpom top 100 in the sweet 16 with a top 5 lottery pick at guard, seniors all across your rotation, and next year’s NPOY favorite…you can’t lose that game.
Also I fully realize “you can’t lose that game” is radio hot take-y to the max. But it’s just hard to make excuses for last year being a great year when that’s where his season ended with all that talent. The draw was wiiiiide open for the F4 demons to be expelled. He didn’t need a Trey Burke miracle heave this time. He just needed to play Zach Edey more than 16 minutes against a 6-7” center
Going this route, it’s extremely unimpressive to me that last year’s Purdue team finished 14th on kenpom (one spot below a Fran McCaffery coached team with way less talent). That was a top 5 roster in the country last year pretty clearly IMO.
I mean, Iowa had the best player in the Big Ten. They were pretty talented. Keegan was a way better college basketball player than Jaden Ivey.
I don’t think Purdue’s roster ever fit last year and said so all year long. Two of their three best players played the same position and their lottery pick was a bad fit for the system and didn’t play any defense.
I think you’re both right. Purdue last year talent wise was better than the 14th on Kenpom (which I see Buckets just mentioned while I was typing this) they finished and losing to St. Peter’s sucks. But obv one game or even one season shouldn’t diminish a coach’s resume and overall it was still a pretty good season mostly hurt by Ivey’s indifference to defense and Painter’s insistence on Trevion Williams being a thing
Not every season is going to be maximized by a team or positioned optimally by a coach.
Last year’s team was ranked in the same spot on KenPom last year right? Feels just as hot takey to say he’s figured everything out this year Let the games play out.
I do think this team fits together better in that they have a way to play together (and only one way).
Also from what I can tell, the main reason that Purdue’s KenPom dropped into the teens was just that Michigan absolutely destroyed them. Dropped 5 spots there after being top 10 all year.
My question would be: If they won one more Big Ten game and finished 12th instead of 14th would that change your opinion of the team? Because to me I think that’s a bit silly if it would. Especially if you are thinking about what it means for how good they were and projecting forward.
Of course it matters and they would have loved to win a title, but it doesn’t change how good the team was or wasn’t IMO.
Yes in mid-December both teams were ranked in the top 5 on KP. The difference being last year’s roster belonged in the top 5 if they played to their ceiling all year and it wasn’t any sort of overachievement. This year’s roster should be in the 15-25 range IMO, maybe they end up there, but it doesn’t feel very hot takey to say that Painter is maximizing performance from this group in a way he did not last season down the stretch.
The fact that they started the season ranked in the top 6 on kenpom on torvik, remained there on both through the end of January, and then from February on dropped down to where they landed.
In just the month of Feb, they were 25th on torvik.
From March 1 through end of the year, they were 32nd on torvik.
Also the eye test and common sense that a team with Ivey, Edey and Williams surrounded by six different 38% or higher shooters from three should be a top 5 team in the country.
How does a team whose only loss was Aaron Wheeler and every other rotation player was on the team the season prior go from 34th defensively in the country to 93rd?
If the implication is that Painter is a great coach, it’s hard for me to accept “the roster just didn’t fit” or “Ivey just didn’t defend” like there’s nothing Painter could do about it when the exact roster was miles better defensively the season before. It’s hard for me to accept that a coach as good as Painter couldn’t solve Edey/Williams or Ivey’s fit in the offense to better results than playing like a non-top 25 team in the final month of the season.
And all of this is to say……I think Painter is a great coach! But if that’s the belief, it seems pretty reasonable to criticize him for last season while also believing he’s a great coach.
There are definitely going to be years where a coach isn’t the best fit for his roster, if you could say that about Painter last year. Izzo very often is the wrong fit for his roster when he gets a big recruiting class and freshmen are playing big minutes. But he still got to the second weekend despite that.
So basically, relative to preseason priors. Which, sure. I think it is far more interesting to evaluate preseason priors against what actually happens than to evaluate what actually happens against preseason priors.
The stuff about fit, about Ivey’s poor defense, etc. is more just an understanding of what didn’t work with that team rather than something to accept. It’s just objectively looking at the team and saying why it was what it was.
Stats like this are just repeating the fact that they got boat raced at Michigan and lost to Saint Peter’s.
I just think that if a coach finishes top 15 in KenPom consistently and makes the second weekend consistently, those are good seasons. Keep doing that and you’ll make Final Fours, and raise banners, etc. Sometimes you will have the finish but not the bottom line results but that’s OK.
Just for the record, the back and forth between @buckets12 , @kturnup and @umhoops is great content. Your perspectives are informative and I like how you defend them strongly while still being respectful.
I was just going to log-in and say the same thing. Especially since they all actually agree that Painter is a great coach but they’re arguing about how great he is - sorta great or really great - and whether we should give him the side-eye for not doing more last year. LOL
The only thing I would add to the mix is that Purdue had a really easy B10 schedule last year and that’s more ammo on the “missed opportunity” side of the argument. I would also echo Dylan’s comment that we need to see this year play out a little more before we make too many judgments. The B10 has a way of beating each other to a pulp as they know tendencies and scouting inside and out.
Finally, the real thing to focus on is that Painter seems like both a good coach but a good person and I’d rather root for guys like that to hang banners than the guys who often do. I really wish Beilein would have found a way to win one of those championships because of the type of person/coach he is. I’m not saying the Izzo/K/Self/etc. group aren’t good coaches…but they aren’t easy to root for.
Only played Minnesota and Nebraska once. They definitely didn’t have an easy schedule relative to Wisconsin.
I am a huge BIg Ten regular season title guy but the schedules play a larger and larger role as leagues expand. Wisconsin had four games against the two awful teams in the league. Purdue (and Illinois) had two.
That’s a massive swing. So is Greg Gard some evil genius that knows how to win the Big Ten? Or did he win the league because of SOS with very mediocre underlying numbers.
Here’s the Big Ten sorted by conf-only adj EM margin last year, for example:
