Well, it may have more to do with roster construction then. Many have made that argument with respect to B1G basketball vs. NCAA Tourney.
There's just so much dumb one game luck involved.
Also, if you told me we could have a choice of a run to the title game like 2005....followed by what we endured for 10+ years after that.....vs. the sustained success we have now with a reasonable chance to have NCAA success every year but have random success with no guarantee there (such as Painter)....I'm taking the latter every day and twice on Sunday.
Well yeah, if the two options are Matt Painter or purgatory, Painter seems like the better choice.
But if my options are Painter, Izzo, Ryan, Beilein, Self, Matta, Kruger, or Sampson (
), Painter is at the bottom of the list for me.
He's a perfectly fine coach and he may force me to eat crow this year, but he's been there for 20 years and until Edey came along, Purdue never (and still hasn't) reached the heights that the Big Ten coaches above got their schools to I
in far less time. Not to mention, Painter took over a pretty decent situation.
I do like him, but when you've been
this close to breaking through to that MSU, AZ, Gonzaga tier of programs as Illinois has, Painter's tenure would be a big time settle.
Edit: He probably should be coach of the year. He built and coached a dominant team. He shouldn't be penalized for having great players.