Purdue Basketball: Matt Painter opens up about transfers Haarms, Eastern

Purdue basketball coach Matt Painter didn’t mince his words when talking about his team’s outgoing transfers on Dan Dakich’s radio show Wednesday.

Purdue Basketball coach Matt Painter sounded off on outgoing transfers Matt Haarms and Nojel Eastern, telling radio host Dan Dakich that jumping ship isn’t always the best move for developing players with eyes on the NBA.

“They don’t get the big picture of just how good you’ve got to be (to make the NBA) and how much work you’ve got to put in,” Painter said Wednesday on “The Dan Dakich Show.”

The pointed comments came as the NCAA mulls a one-time exception that would allow all transfers to play without having to sit out a season — and as the pair of surprise departures had some people questioning Painter’s program.

Dakich took to Twitter the following day to defend Painter against criticism from listeners who said his comments were too harsh. But where there was criticism, there was also plenty of praise for Painter’s bluntness.

Haarms, a 7-foot-3-inch center, committed to play at BYU next season as a graduate transfer. He spent three years at Purdue, but he lost his starting spot and averaged just 8.6 points and 4.6 rebounds per game in the season that ended prematurely due to the coronavirus.

“We tried to play Trevion Williams and him together, and it didn’t work,” Painter said, referencing the 6-foot-9-inch junior who started 22 games as a sophomore a season ago. “To his defense, he got hurt. He had two concussions … But in reality, Trevion Williams beat him out. That’s it.”

“You might have got your degree from Purdue, but you’re not a Boilermaker if you walk out the door at the end and say, ‘Hey, I want to make the league,’” Painter added. “Well, guys that want to make the league work like Carsen Edwards and Caleb Swanigan. I didn’t see that from him.”

Painter said Eastern, who committed Thursday to Michigan, was making a bigger mistake by walking out on his degree and on Purdue. The guard played three seasons at Purdue and started 27 games a year ago, averaging 4.9 points and 2.7 assists.

“To me, Jelly is walking out of here without his degree, and I’m like, ‘Man, come on. What are we doing here?’ You’ve got to get your degree from Purdue,” Painter said.

Both players, he said, are switching schools to chase the NBA after underwhelming seasons in 2019-2020. But “transfers don’t get drafted very much,” he said.

“These were good guys,” Painter said. “Matt Haarms is a good guy. Nojel Eastern is a good guy. But they want something out there, and they’re going, they’re trying, they think it’s there. And it’s not magical. What they want lies in their work, and what they want lies in their own production.”

Here’s what else Painter said about Haarms, Eastern and the topic of transfers.