Matt Painter’s masterpiece and master class against the NCAA

On the court, it’s close to Matt Painter’s masterpiece.

Zach Edey’s national championship runner-up team, that was a team of grit, of redemption, a team fighting from the shadows and contending with the demons that were at Purdue long before Matt Painter. Edey might be Matt Painter’s singular greatest work of heart, from a top-400 something recruit to one of the most dominant college basketball players of all time, but this team is a mural of Painter’s philosophies come to life.

It is the culmination, a curation of the principles that Painter has both preached and lived. The non-negotiables, crafted after years and years of trying to find himself and what Purdue would be when carved in his image.

When Purdue took Braden Smith out of the game with more than ten minutes to play against Kent State, and needing just 10 assists to break the all-time Big Ten assist record, a funny thing happened.

Purdue’s offense took off. Jack Benter, another Matt Painter redshirt, lit Mackey Arena on fire. Benter scored 20 points in his first 13 minutes of action. He made all 7 of his shots, but describing his field goals as just shots does him a great injustice. Benter fired quick early, quick late, and then went further from the three-point line and kept firing.

Braden Smith, who is chasing the all-time NCAA assist record, and every minute he spends on the bench jeapordizes that pursuit, never made it back onto the court in the second half, in part because Painter has built his best bench to date.

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Instead, Smith was one of the loudest, most animated players on the bench when Omer Mayer launched a ball precariously high over the rim, over what Braden Smith commented seemed like 14 players in the paint, to try and add another field goal for Benter in the form of an alley oop dunk.

Instead, for the only time that night, Benter would come up empty, never even getting the ball and instead just getting two handfuls of the rim as he swung back and forth in front of another…

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Publish date : 2025-12-30 04:54:00

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