Gold and Black is a multi-platform media company that covers Purdue athletics like no one else.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/405025
ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 2 55 f BY BRIAN NEUBERT BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com A t Big Ten media day in Chicago in mid-October, assembled questioners asked over and over again of Purdue coach Matt Painter: "What happened?" They were asking about the Boilermaker program's drop-off the past two seasons. Painter's answers kept coming back to the same cen- tral theme, so much of it rooted in recruiting: The issues haven't been talent as much as they've been about "fit," Painter said. "It starts in recruiting and getting the right guy, the right guy for me," he said. "… The No. 1 thing we've struggled with is just doing what we're sup- posed to do. You have to do your job. If you've ever been in a high- ly successful, highly competitive business, coaching, playing or whatever, the coach or boss will always just say, 'Do your job, do it the right way and do it the right way every time.' When you get guys who are that way, you are going to be really successful and we just didn't do it." Painter conceded that too much of an emphasis might have been put in recent classes on simple raw talent, more so than how that talent might function in the Boilermaker program. He lamented trying to recruit "the best players in my area" for a pe- riod of several years as opposed to broadening his scope to find the best fits. "We've recruited more toward talent than production," Painter said. "It opens your eyes to finding guys who are productive and (valuing) the manner in which they're productive." Won't happen again, the coach says. Obviously, talent is of paramount importance, but just part of the equation. "When you do your job every single time and it doesn't work, then I have to make an adjustment," Painter said, "but when they're not doing it — if you're supposed to stay tight on a screen and you do it one time, then shoot the gap the next time, when you're supposed to be tight every time — then that part of coaching isn't sinking in. You keep working with those guys and most of time they make that adjustment. When they don't, it's frustrating." Painter was asked about any changes to his recruiting phi- losophy that might have come after Robbie Hummel, E'Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson starred at Purdue. "I'm not mad I didn't get (re- cruits of that caliber) because when you shoot for the moon, you aren't always going to get them," Painter said of the past few years of recruiting. "I'm mad I didn't get another Lewis Jack- son or another Ryne Smith or another Keaton Grant, because we can get those guys. "Those are good compa- ny guys, hard-working guys. They're going to help you win and they want to be coached. We have to get those guys and I think we've done that with our freshman class now." And classes to come, he hopes. Lessons Learned P R E S E N T S M E N ' S B A S K E T B A L L R E C R U I T I N G More than ever, 'fit' takes precedent for Purdue in recruiting Tom Campbell Carmel guard Ryan Cline is one of the high school ranks' finest shooters and a long-standing winner on the high school and summer circuits.