Why is Purdue Basketball So Likeable?

Since the Baby Boilers I have spent each college basketball season watching Purdue as if they are one of my favorite college basketball teams in the country. And they are. The problem with this is I'm a lifelong, die-hard, irrational Indiana Basketball fan (We still miss you Coach Crean).

I find myself feeling the need to tweet about how much I love watching Purdue play basketball every night they take the court. In recent years, I have masked actually doing that with my staple "It's a complete joy to watch Mason Gillis play basketball" tweet. And it is. Mason Gillis is just a joy to watch play basketball and he'll end the game with 6 points and 8 rebounds but I enjoyed every second of him being on the floor.

The truth is, it's a complete joy to watch The Boilers as a whole every single night they play, no matter who they play. As I mentioned, I started watching them religiously during the Baby Boilers and haven't looked back. The one common denominator in all of those seasons is one guy.

I'm not shy on Twitter about how I think of Matt Painter and I'm sure people get tired of my tweets when I have to say something after some network's "Top Ten Active Coaches" lists and they leave off Coach Painter. It's pure insanity. I dove into some of the reasons in short on why I think Coach Painter should be near the top of every one of those lists on Twitter about a month ago but after their Ohio State win the other night, I thought I would expand a little more on why I think it's physically impossible to dislike Purdue Basketball.

Let's just start with the basic basketball reasons. Anyone who kind of understands basketball knows that Purdue runs some of the best offensive action in the country. All 5 guys are moving at the same time on most of their possessions and they are extremely hard to guard in the half court. But when it comes down to their scoring action, you always know some sort of variation that they are going to finish their possessions with. You know there's a high low option, you know there is a big down screening a guard for an immediate seal post entry, you know there will be a double stagger for the 8 billion shooters they have, and you know there will be at some point in the possession their best playmaker getting the basketball with space to make a play. You know these things are going to happen in Purdue possessions. Most of the time all of these options are there within the offense on the same 30-second possession. Go watch other teams across the country... EVEN the best teams. It's a rarity that every time your point guard dribbles the ball down the floor you are confident your team is going to get a great shot that possession. That's 100% of Purdue possessions.

The thing that makes Purdue and Coach Painter so great is even after everything I mentioned above about the complexity and the number of options they have in their possessions, 2 nights ago down 1 at Ohio State he goes simple. Late game ATOs in the modern era of basketball typically go 1 of 2 ways.

1. Get the ball in your best player's hands, everyone else get out of the way and go make a play. No other option.

2. Head or Assistant Coach want to show off that set they've had in their back pocket that looks great when executed, but they haven't ran it in 2 months and the spacing/timing ends up being a disaster.

Down 1, need a basket. The best X's and O's Coach in the country throws his best shooter and freshman 2 guard (who struggled in 1st half) in the same corner as their dominant big, L cut the freshman guard to get open, and now you have 2 options and 2 options only. Throw it into your big who will absolutely score if you don't double and when they do double, they have to come from your best shooter. Trusts his big man to make the correct decision and his freshman 2 guard to knock in a game-winning 3 in his 4th ever BigTen Basketball game. Game over.

Coach Painter's clip of him talking multiple years ago in what was then Banker's Life Fieldhouse gets resurfaced every year because his teams are always these types of teams. He recruits guys that are from good high school programs and develops them better than anyone else in the country. Purdue is always going to play together, move the basketball, guard you, and not care who scores. The thing about Purdue that I think gets too little credit is how the national media acts like they just recruit guys who go on to have other jobs after college. Couldn't be further from the truth. The aspect that makes these teams so fun to watch year after year is the amount of guys they have who can hurt you. Carsen Edwards had a Steph Curry-type tournament so people forget the absurdity that was Ryan Cline against Tennessee. We forget how good Vince Edwards really was. We forget how good Dakota Mathias and PJ Thompson were for those Purdue teams. It'll be the same for this team this year. David Jenkins Jr. needs like 100 more points for TWO THOUSAND in his career. He plays behind Braden Smith, who NO ONE recruited. It's impossible to talk about how good Caleb Furst, Mason Gillis, Brandon Newman, and Trey Kauffman-Renn really are. All those guys go and start at any other Big-Ten School. And somehow Coach Painter is so good he plays all of these guys.

The player development at Purdue year in and year out is truly sensational. But the evaluation of talent at Purdue is off the charts. Purdue has risen to the Number 1 team in the country for the second straight year. This year was a year they began the season unranked and no one saw them as a top 15 team. It isn't a knock on their team but it is a disservice to the program. Everyone knew Zach Edey was really good and going to be difficult to deal with on a nightly basis. No one saw him as the clear front-runner in the National Player of the Year running. But the biggest question was the guard play simply because of the guards they lost last year. And it wasn't a knock on their incoming guards, it's just really hard to be good immediately AND you lose a lottery pick + career guys. As I mentioned earlier no one recruited Braden Smith. Which is insanity. He won Indiana Mr. Basketball, which probably should have clued us in on how good he really is. People outside of Indiana may not understand the magnitude of winning that award and to save time writing about it, please just go look up past winners. Fletcher Loyer was coming in from Homestead and his team was arguably the best team in the state his Junior and Senior years. We should have known these guys would be this good immediately, because of course they are.

Purdue has an identity year in and year out. This year is no exception. Everyone knows the role they play and they have all accepted that role while wanting to be the best in that role that they can be. No better example of this than Ethan Morton. Watch how he plays, how many times he looks to score, how hard he defends, and how happy he is for his teammates game in and game out. They play hard, they play for each other, and they care about winning.

This leads in to the next reason I think Purdue is the way they are and as consistent as they continue to be. Coach Painter has zero fluff to him. I think it was Caleb Furst who was just quoted saying Coach Painter is the same guy he was in the recruiting process to who he is now. That isn't the norm. The amount of ego and self-promotion that takes place among college coaches throughout the country is insane. Coach Painter seems to be as authentic no matter the time of year, after a win, or after a loss. Never throwing his own players under the bus, always holding them accountable, while also giving praise to other teams/coaches for playing well when they get beat. As the leader of the program, he's consistent and always under control which is why Purdue fans can always feel confident going into any game or possession. His assistants aren't up and screaming every possession like tons of other programs around the country but his bench is always involved. His assistants also go on to get head jobs and be really successful in leading their own programs.

As I mentioned, I'm an IU fan and the program has been trying to get back to the Monday night game for 20 years. Coach Painter and Purdue continuously get criticism for "not getting it done in March". Which is always funny to me. 1 team gets it done in March. 363 teams are currently playing basketball at the Division 1 level this year. 1 will "get it done in March". It's really, really hard to do. The amount of things that have to go perfectly right for your program in the span of a couple weeks, let alone an entire year, is just shy of impossible.

This is a 10,000 foot view and a few of my own opinions on just some of the reasons Purdue is so fun to watch and why their program is so successful year after year. I've given up a long time ago being the college basketball fan who hates another team because you're supposed to as a fan of another program. Part of that probably has to do with me being involved in college basketball at one point and the other part is exactly what this is all about, Purdue makes it physically impossible to dislike them. As a fan of the sport, it just isn't an option. I'll continue to watch every game and root for them in all but 2. Last year I was in a defensive stance guarding Jaden Ivey from my apartment in Knoxville, TN as he missed a 30 footer by an inch in Bloomington that made my irrational Indiana fandom come out and think the Hoosiers had a chance to win the National Championship for a day or two. This year will be no different.