Matt Painter Tourney History – Let’s Really Analyze It Against the Field

Purdue and Matt Painter regularly take heat on poor postseason performances, but I think it’s time to analyze this a bit because we live in an age where all of this information is out there and able to be found. We don’t need to rely on the memory of our elders to tell us what happened – we have the interwebs. So let’s really delve into where Purdue generally and Matt Painter specifically stand in terms of NCAA tourney success and how he compares to past and present Big Ten coaches.

We’re going to look at everything and go back further than you probably thought…but let me start by saying we need to compare apples to apples as best we can. Sure, Branch McCracken won a title in 1940, but is that the same as winning one in the 21st century? You’re lying or living in southern Indiana if you say yes. To me, the “modern era” of college basketball and, by extension, the NCAA tournament begins in 1985. That was the year things expanded to the perfection of 64 teams. It’s also, incidentally, right around when the shot clock and the three-point line were added. What a time of change! (The shot clock was added for ’85-’86 and the three point line was universally added in 1986.)

But I promised we’d fully analyze and look at things and be inclusive. So let’s do that. First off, there have been 198 Big Ten basketball coaches in the league’s history. Do you know how many of them are credited with winning a national title (in the Big Ten)?

Seven (7).

That’s right, out of nearly 200 coaches, seven have won an NCAA Tourney title. In some true “guys namin’ dudes” spirit, how many can you name? I’ll insert some spaces here so you can think on it and challenge your friends.

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Okay, ready? Here we go.

Bob Knight (3), Branch McCracken (2), Steve Fisher, Bud Foster, Jud Heathcote, Tom Izzo, Fred Taylor (not the running back).

And so now we get to the thorny subject of “modern era” vs not. It’s somewhat easy for me to dismiss titles won in, like, 1940, when – just as a for instance – black players were still not welcome in the Big Ten. (The Big Ten’s first player of color was William Garrett in 1947.) Or titles like in 1953 when there were all of 22 teams in the tourney (there were EIGHT in 1940 and ’41). You get the idea.

So let’s remove – or if not remove, then cast a bit of a side-eye at – the titles won by Big Ten teams in 1940, 1941, 1953 and 1960.

If we’re being true to the idea of 1985 and the 64 team bracket being the reasonable starting point, then we disqualify all of Bob Knight’s titles aside from 1987 and it also strikes Jud’s 1979 title with Magic Johnson, which I admit doesn’t feel reasonable. But that’s probably only because Magic then played clear into the ‘90s and well into what we consider modern basketball – hell, he’s a big reason why we have the modern basketball that we have. (I’ll stop this paragraph now before Aneesh sues me for infringing on his subject matter.)

But if we’re paring it back to titles won from 1985 onward (64 team bracket, three point shot, shot clock, et al.) then were down to these:

Bob Knight/Indiana – 1987

Steve Fisher/Michigan – 1989

Tom Izzo/MSU – 2000

So when people come at you, let’s start there. Winning a national title out of the Big Ten in basketball is…exceedingly rare. You cannot be faulted for thinking Purdue has a legitimate shot at it this year and now you know that if it happens, Matt Painter joins this group. Wow.

But let’s back it up to sort of what I think we all agree is the initial goal, milestone, mountaintop, whatever. Getting to a Final Four.

Of the 198 coaches all time, 127 had some tournament to play in. Of those, twenty-five (25) have made a Final Four. This’ll be easier in chart form so here you go.

Goodness, Tom Izzo’s consistency is dumb. Say what you want about him – and we have – but that guy knows how to win in March.

But let’s have some fun here and maybe take a look at this dicing out the guys who aren’t what we’ve agreed are modern era coaches (which costs us Purdue coaches King and Rose) and for those who cross over eras, let’s adjust their FF numbers (the only guy this affects is Knight).

So now you’re talking about a pool of 13 Big Ten coaches who have made a Final Four in what we’ve defined as the modern era.

No matter how you carve this up, advancing to Final Fours and winning national titles is hard. Just under 20% of the Big Ten coaches who had an NCAA tournament to play in made it to the Final Four.

Now let’s quickly look at the current Big Ten coaches. Of those 14 (RIP Chris Holtmann and Juwan Howard), how many have made a Final Four?

Yeah, one. Izzo. He has five S16s, two E8s, six FFs, a national runner-up and a title (note, these totals are counting each time he made it and not double counting – meaning, he’s obviously made it to eight Final Fours but for purposes of this list, he’s got six FFs, a runner-up and a title). Which means he’s done the second weekend 16 of 25 times.

Painter has 14 tourney appearances and in those has five Sweet 16s and one Elite Eight. So 43% of the time, Matt Painter makes it to the second weekend. (I’ll let you read that sentence again.)

Greg Gard has two Sweet 16s in five appearances.

Juwan Howard had a Sweet 16 and an Elite Eight in two appearances.

Nobody else has made a Sweet 16.

Fran McCaffrey – Iowa’s all-time winningest head coach – has qualified Iowa for the NCAA Tournament seven times. Congratulations, Fran!

Izzo and Howard have made it to the second weekend a higher percentage of their trips, but Howard won’t be in any more Tourneys at Michigan and Izzo is (finally) on the back nine.

What does all this mean?

It means, as we’ve said before, that Purdue basketball remains in an enviable position, one that the vast majority of programs in the nation – let alone the Big Ten – would happily trade for. Matt Painter is 17-15 all time in the NCAA Tourney. He has advanced. He consistently builds conference champions and nationally contending teams. He’s the best coach in the Big Ten and one of the best in the country, whether people who watch four college basketball games a year believe it or not.

But will any of this matter in the coming weeks?

Nah. And I get it.