There are only eight coaches that have been at the helm of their program longer than Purdue’s Matt Painter. The 55-year-old continues to shine among the best of the best when it comes to head basketball coaches.
Painter will start his 21st season in West Lafayette, and many would argue he will have the best team he has ever had at Purdue. That is not an easy task for a program that is two years removed from reaching the NCAA Tournament title game.
The 2025-26 Purdue Boilermakers have the size, the speed, the energy, and the ability to knock down enough shots to beat any other team in college basketball. Plus, they have some of the best coaching in the country as well.
Painter played his college basketball at Purdue and finished in 1993. In his senior season, he averaged more than 30 minutes per game on the court, scoring 8.6 points per game. He immediately took an assistant job elsewhere and worked his way back to West Lafayette. Before getting the job with the Boilermakers, he spent one season at Southern Illinois, where he led the Salukis to the Missouri Valley Conference title and NCAA Tournament.
From Player to Purdue’s Cornerstone
Painter then took the job as the assistant head coach to Gene Keady in his final season. The first season was not pretty, as the Boilermakers finished 9-19, including just 3-13 in Big Ten play for 11th in the league. That was the first of just three seasons in his tenure where Purdue did not reach the NCAA Tournament. The other two were back-to-back from 2012-2014. By the 2014-2015 season, Purdue was back, and they have not missed since.
In all, Painter has 24 NCAA Tournament wins, and in November, he will likely reach 500 career overall coaching wins, needing just four. He sits one behind former Illinois coach Bruce Weber and six behind Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan, who has 502. Purdue has been to the Final Four once, and won five Big Ten regular-season titles, and twice won the conference tournament.
Building a Legacy in West Lafayette
The head coach was named the NABC Coach of the Year in 2019, and five times he has won the Big Ten Coach of the Year. Painter was also the head coach in 2017 at the FISU World University Games, where he led Team USA to a silver medal.
When the Mt. Rushmore of current head coaches in the Big Ten is assembled, there are two names that come to mind immediately. The first is the head coach at Michigan State named Tom Izzo. The second is also an obvious one, and that’s Matt Painter of the Purdue Boilermakers. Do not be surprised if the Boilers are cutting down nets in late March and early April under the steady leadership of Painter.