Matthew Curtis Painter (born August 27, 1970)"Happy Birthday ." The Garrett Clipper: August 26, 2012. p. 5. is an American college basketball coach and former player. He is currently the 19th Boilermakers men's basketball head coach at Purdue University, serving in that role since 2005. Painter was also the head coach at Southern Illinois University for one season in 2003–04. He played at Purdue as a guard from 1989 to 1993.
Painter was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He attended high school at Delta High School in Muncie, Indiana. After graduation from high school in 1989, Painter enrolled at Purdue University and played point guard for the Boilermakers, starting for one season. As a senior in 1993, he led Purdue in assists and was an honorable mention All-Big Ten Conference selection.
From 1993 to 2003, Painter was an assistant coach at Washington & Jefferson (1993–94), Barton (1994–95), Eastern Illinois (1995–1998) and Southern Illinois (1998–2003). After helping lead Southern Illinois to consecutive Missouri Valley Conference championships in 2002 and 2003, he was promoted to head coach when Bruce Weber left for Illinois, where he led the Salukis to another conference championship in one season, including advancing to the 2004 NCAA Division I Tournament. Immediately afterward, Painter signed a six-year deal as head coach of the Purdue Boilermakers, where he would spend a year as a coach-in-waiting until Gene Keady's retirement at the end of the season. With Painter at the helm, Purdue teams have won the Big Ten Conference five times, the Big Ten Tournament three times, and have reached the NCAA tournament 17 times, with nine Sweet-16 appearances, three Elite Eight appearances, one Final Four and one national title game appearance. Combined with his Southern Illinois' NCAA Tournament appearance, he has a total of 18 tournament appearances in 22 years coaching. During his tenure at Purdue, Painter has coached a total of eleven players who went on to play in the NBA, with three of them being drafted in the first round of the NBA draft. Painter has been named Big Ten Conference Coach of the year five times, which is second all time behind his predecessor Gene Keady.
Playing career Matt Painter was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and attended Delta High School, in Muncie, Indiana. He played basketball for former basketball coach and athletic director, Stan Daugherty. He grew up a fan of Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball and dreamed of playing for coach Bobby Knight at IU; however, Coach Knight never offered him a scholarship. Instead, Painter attended Purdue University as an undergraduate. He played four seasons as a Boilermakers point guard under head coach Gene Keady and assistants Bruce Weber and Steve Lavin. During his college career, the team went to three NCAA Tournaments and one NIT appearance, with his best NCAA Tourney finish being the round of 32. He was teammates with Jimmy Oliver, Steve Scheffler, and Glenn Robinson. He started 50 of the 109 games in which he appeared and helped his team to a 75–45 overall record. In his senior season, he was selected as a team captain and was named an All-Big Ten Honorable Mention. Painter finished his career averaging 4.5 points-per-game and totaling 276 assists.
Year Team 1989–90 Purdue 19 4.4 .267 .333 .400 0.4 0.6 0.1 0.1 0.8 1990–91 Purdue 29 20.3 .423 .357 .634 1.9 3.0 0.2 0.0 4.2 1991–92 Purdue 33 13.7 .390 .286 .717 1.4 1.5 0.5 0.0 3.3 1992–93 Purdue 28 30.3 .491 .387 .677 2.7 4.5 0.8 0.1 8.6 Cited from Sports Reference.
Coaching career
Assistant coach After graduation from Purdue in 1993, Painter moved on to coaching basketball. His first year as a coach was an assistant coach position at Washington & Jefferson College. as an assistant to former Purdue assistant coach Tom Reiter. With Painter's help, the team finished the season with a 22–3 record and a quarterfinal appearance in the NCAA Division III tournament. During this time, he worked as a forklift operator to supplement his income.
The next season, he became an assistant coach at Barton College. In the 1994–95 season, Barton finished with 13 wins and 13 losses. Painter then moved to Division I as an assistant coach at Eastern Illinois of the Ohio Valley Conference, where he also received his master's degree.
Southern Illinois After three years at Eastern Illinois, he moved to Southern Illinois in 1998 as an assistant to head coach Bruce Weber. Painter was previously acquainted with him while Weber was an assistant coach at Purdue during Painter's playing days. Weber and Painter quickly turned a team that had a losing record the previous season into a successful team. Painter helped lead the Salukis to the NIT in 2000 and twice to the NCAA tournament the following seasons while an assistant coach. In the 2001–02 season, they qualified for the NCAA tournament and ended their season in the Sweet Sixteen with a loss to UConn. That year, SIU beat well-established programs such as Georgia and Texas Tech. In 2003, Weber's and Painter's Salukis were featured on MTV's special True Life: I Am a College Baller.
After serving as an assistant coach for five seasons at SIU, Painter stepped into his first NCAA Division I head coaching position after Bruce Weber took the head coaching job at Illinois for the 2003–04 season. Leading the Salukis to a 25–5 record and a berth in the 2004 NCAA tournament, the team was ranked as high as #15 in the nation by the AP poll during the season. Painter was named the 2003–2004 Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year.
Purdue
2004–05 season In 2004, Painter was recruited by Purdue as the replacement for retiring head coach Gene Keady. He signed a six-year contract as the new Purdue Boilermakers men's basketball coach. As part of a planned transition, Painter was named the associate head coach for the 2004–05 season. He joined former teammate Cuonzo Martin (former head coach at the University of Missouri) on the coaching staff. With key players out with injuries, suspensions and transfers, Purdue finished the season with a 7–21 record, the most losses in the program's history in a season.
2005–06 season At the start of the 2005–06 season, Painter took over for Keady as the head coach at his alma mater and became the second former Purdue player to become the head coach since Ray Eddy (1950–1965). In his first season in that role, despite the absences of injured starters, David Teague and Carl Landry, and only playing with seven scholarship players, they finished with a 9–19 record. Painter's first Purdue squad as a head coach came up with wins against eventual NCAA Tournament qualifier Wisconsin and #23 Michigan.
2006–07 season
In his second season as head coach, the team had high hopes for an NCAA berth. Both power forward Carl Landry and shooting guard David Teague returned to the lineup after injuries, combining an average of about 34 points and 15 rebounds per game. Painter's Boilermakers finished the non-conference season with an 11–3 record, which included wins over previously unbeaten and top 25 schools Virginia and Missouri. They headed deep into the regular season without a road win. The team had also not won a road game in the two prior seasons during which Painter was part of the Boilermaker's bench. That 29 road-game losing streak ended on February 3, 2007, when Purdue beat Penn State at the Bryce Jordan Center. After winning seven of their last ten conference games during the regular season and setting a single-season school record for most home wins at 16 in Mackey Arena, Painter and his Boilermakers finished the regular season with a 9–7 conference record. They received a 5th seed in the Big Ten tournament and were knocked out in the semifinals when they lost to a Greg Oden-led Ohio State team. Purdue was invited to the 2007 NCAA tournament, Painter's second appearance as a head coach, and received a 9 seed. The team's opening round opponent was Lute Olson's Arizona. After beating the Wildcats, Purdue fell to Billy Donovan's number one seeded and defending/eventual national champions, Florida. With +13 wins from the previous season, it was the biggest win-margin turnaround in the program's history.
2007–08 season Coming off one of the program's biggest single season improvements, Painter returned only one senior on the roster with 6 newcomers. Painter achieved notable recruiting success, signing one of the top five recruiting classes in the nation for 2007, all coming from the state of Indiana. Painter started at least three freshmen in every game at the start of the 2007–08 season, making it the youngest starting line-up in the nation. His "baby boilers" finished the non-conference season with a 9–4 record, which included a win against Rick Pitino's #22 ranked Louisville, as well as a loss to Wofford, their only home loss of the season. During an eleven-game winning streak in conference play, they swept the season series with the conference champion #8 Wisconsin and had a home win against #9 Michigan State. It was the first back-to-back wins versus top ten teams in school history. Their winning streak was ended when they lost to in-state rival, #14 Indiana. Painter and his Boilers finished the regular season in 2nd place with a 15–3 record. During the regular season and into the conference tournament, Purdue was ranked as high as #15 in both polls. Painter's team entered the Big Ten tournament with the #2 seed. They lost in the quarterfinals to the 10th seeded Illinois. They were invited to the 2008 NCAA tournament and given a #6 seed. They beat Baylor in the first round, giving Purdue its 10th straight first round win in the tournament. They lost in the second round to a senior-led Xavier team. He was eventually named the Big Ten Conference Coach of the Year. The Boilers finished the season with a 25–9 record.
2008–09 season