I saw this tweet and I swear I almost fuckin died on the spot.
It’s a visual representation of the starting 5 in the sweet 16 and where they started their college careers.
Take a long look.
Some easy observations:
- Duke and Michigan have 4 starters
- There’s a lot of Tennessee players in the sweet 16
- 50% of the starting lineups consist of 5 players from 5 different schools
- Having just 3 players originally starting stands out dramatically with Houston and BYU
- As an Illini fan, I selfishly like seeing there’s no Illinois players on this list because if they made the sweet 16, I’d want them to do it with Purdue
- And of course most importantly – Purdue:
That’s awesome on so many levels and it’s making Matt Painter improbably stand out even more over time.
Do you know how much of a dump Purdue’s campus is?
It’s gotta be so hard to convince players it’s a fun experience because it’s quite literally the textbook definition of Miserable.
Even more impressive is that Mackey Arena has evolved into the near-unanimously decided hardest place to play in the Big Ten.
How did Matt Painter do this?
There’s been two separate occasions where his roster’s fallen off a cliff: after Robbie Hummel and after Carsen Edwards. Both times he won 15 or 16 games the next season and both times they rebounded right back to 25+ wins in the next recruiting class.
And he’s done it with just 3 first rounders in his entire career with 2 of them coming in the last 3 years.
So credit to Matt Painter for being a real weirdo with the X’s and O’s and reminds me of my favorite Matt Painter story.
In a day and age when all the offseason conditioning is programmed like it’s Rocky IV, the Purdue men’s basketball team has a very simple offseason conditioning program. According to a former player and former all conference guard, Coach Painter will randomly pick one day in the fall and make the entire team run the mile. Everyone has to run it in 5 minutes unless you’re a big man then you get 6 minutes. There’s no exceptions or rules or anything other than running the mile under your designated time.
If you make your time, you get to be on the team. If you miss your time, you can’t join the team until you make it.
We’re talking about a 5 minute mile here. That’s like 11.5 on a treadmill.
And it goes for every player even if you can’t run and have weak lungs and all that bullshit.
He’s got one simple offseason conditioning test and everyone knows the rules going into it. There’s games or gimmicks or modern nuance to your performance profile. Just lace up the sneakers and start running your dick off for Coach Painter.
Again. in a day and age when everything’s so soft, there’s a lot of room for guys like Matt Painter and it’s awesome to see his formula working once again.
Even if he’s a sworn enemy to my beloved Illini. Respect is owed where its due and that’s why I’m cheering for Purdue this weekend.
PS – Braden Smith is nothing but a corpse on the microphone. What a barf show