Matt Painter already won

Gen Z-Bo awaits. But whatever happens in an immense Final Four, Purdue has already sealed its place in history

It is remarkable, in retrospect, how boring the press conference was. You almost felt like the game deserved more — a rant, righteous anger, tears, seppuku.

Purdue had just lost one of the greatest Elite Eight games, the greatest mutual tournament performance most attendees had ever seen live, and Purdue coach Matt Painter was visibly and audibly devastated. His voice cracked. His eyes broke. He barely kept it together. If you just read the transcript, though, you wouldn’t know.

“The other night was pretty cool,” Painter said, of Purdue’s 2019 Sweet Sixteen overtime win over Tennessee, after Purdue’s 80-75 overtime loss to Virginia. “And today stinks.”

And that was it, the only verbal hint. The rest of the press conference was nuts and bolts: tactics, plays that could have gone Purdue’s way, things Virginia did well, moments that defined a valiant defeat. It was quick and painless. There was no angst implicit in questions, no self-doubt in answers, no reassertions of core principles or faithful professions from a coach who’d just come within a freak possession of a first trip to the Final Four. Purdue lost to the better team, barely. What else was there to ask?

It was naïve. Here was the stoic Painter, having fallen to the eventual national champions in an Elite Eight classic, as publicly devastated as he’d ever been, sure that he would never feel worse.

He had no idea what the next five years would hold, the depths of embarrassment and anguish to come. But he also knew one thing, had always known it, even if there would be more anxiety along the way: If Matt Painter kept going, eventually, Purdue would get there.

“If … you can put skill and competitive spirit together, those two qualities together is magic, man,” Painter told reporters after Sunday’s 72-66 Elite Eight win over Tennessee.

On Sunday night, finally, Matt Painter got there.

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To some folks — and it tends to be folks that don’t pay much attention to college basketball until this time of year — deep runs in the NCAA Tournament are a skill issue. Have a great coach, go deep in the tournament. Be a program that goes deep in the tournament, go deep in the tournament. The circular logic, not to mention the ignorance of college basketball’s unique postseason weirdness, never seems to matter. It’s just: This guy can win the tournament. This guy can’t.