Matt Painter holds court at Big Ten media day

It was another Big Ten media day in Rosemont, Illinois and despite Matt Painter's golden tie, he was his usual dressed down self with media.

Painter held court for nearly thirty minutes as he was asked about his young freshmen, Zach Edey's absence, success from last season, the state of college basketball, and how his rotations were going to work out.

As usual, Matt Painter was a good time, joking on occasion, being insightful at others, and generally handling the media day like a twenty year pro at this kind of thing.

Matt Painter still knows how to have a good time with the media. Here's a couple highlights from the day from Matt Painter.

"A lot of his adversory had to do with Zach," Matt Painter said about his redshirt junior, Trey Kaufman-Renn.

Kaufman-Renn was the starting four for Painter last season after playing the backup five in spare minutes in his freshman season. Even so, Kaufman-Renn took an ancillary role. That role was because the big man he played next to was Zach Edey.

Kaufman-Renn's lack of playing time and points to this point, his adversory as Painter called it, has almost nothing to do with Kaufman-Renn the player who Painter expects to be All-B10 level this season now that his major impediment is out of the way.

"That's Zach Edey," Painter said reflecting on what's been tough for Kaufman-Renn. "Trey Kaufman-Renn didn't play as much the year before. That's Zach Edey... I just didn't think it made sen to take him out of the game."

Painter paused for a second before setting up for the line of the day: "You guys do understand that, right?" Painter joked.

Matt Painter just signed a 2025 guard Antione West Jr. on the heels of some major in-state talent choosing to go to both IU and Notre Dame respectively.

Painter was asked about the way he has conversations and deals with talking about roles with potential high school players. After mentioning the difficulty of promising too much and talking to players as if they were going to be the first or second option, something he said all coaches are guilty of at times including himself, he's tried to be more honest and looking for players who want to fill a role for a team more than just be the leading guy.

He made the point of saying that he'd ask a high school player about the seventh man on their high school team and then ask how many plays that guy gets drawn for him.

"I don't run any plays for our 7th man either," Painter said.

The point reflects Painter's philosophy and doubles down on his recent success on the recruiting trail. Purdue finally broke through to the Final Four and Painter was insistent after the first practice of this season that that meant he wanted to keep getting the players and caliber of people that's he's gotten over the last few seasons.

Painter admitted that the anticipation for Purdue to play small this season is likely to happen with Camden Heide potentially playing some at the four this year, particularly when Kaufman-Renn is at the five.

"We haven't done that a lot," Painter said about Heide at the four. "We've done it enough. It puts Cam on a bigger four in practice and I think that's the toughest piece... but offensively it definitely gives an advantage... and it allows Trey to really use his quickness and scoring ability against a bigger five."

It's one possible configuration of a lot of possible rotations that Matt Painter will try to figure out this season. So far, he has locked in on his key three guys, and it's no surprise who that is.

"We've really stayed with Braden, Fletch, and Trey together and mixed in two to three guys with those guys just to kind of see different matchups, how well they play together," Painter said.

Those three should do the heft of Purdue's scoring this season, but dark horses on the wing remain with last year's lone freshman Myles Colvin poised to have a breakout season and Heide looking like one of the best perimeter defenders in the country.

While Zach Edey leaves a monster 7-4 hole down low, it's safe to say that Purdue doesn't accomplish getting to the National Title game last season without its one transfer, Lance Jones, who manned the third guard spot alongside Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer. Jones offered another ball handler next to Smith, another shooter next to Loyer, and a defender that was able to take on any challenge on the perimeter.

It's early, but Painter might have two freshman guards that can do a similar thing, only question will be when will they be ready.

" CJ Cox and Gicarri Harris are both two freshman guards that can guard but they can also handle the ball," Painter said. "And they can make threes. So it gives the prototypical replacement for him [Lance Jones]."

Of course, Myles Colvin and Camden Heide could also provide similar benefits with a year of experience underneath their belts. In addition, Heide and Colvin add a surplus of size and athleticism to the rotation.

College sports are changing. You hear it everywhere. NIL, transfers, programs are rebuilding and breaking apart in just one off season.

Hasn't been the case at Purdue. Despite losing Mason Gillis and Ethan Morton to transferring, both were making use of their fifth year of eligibility because of the shut down COVID season. Those decisions were also made early in the season, not after when Painter would have had to scramble to fill roster spots.

But Painter doesn't have his head in the sky. He knows that even at Purdue and even with the culture of his program, he knows the numbers are going to eventually work against him.

"I do not think we can keep at that clip," Painter said after mentioning how little they've used and been exposed to the transfer portal the last few seasons. "Trying to keep 13 guys happy is a little hard."

Painter would reflect a little more on what is perhaps part of his success, redshirting, and that could be very relevant this season and going forward with a giant 5 player freshman class this year. More than likely, Painter will have another redshirt or two on his team this season.

"That piece of it for us allows us to soften the blow sometimes," Painter said about redshirting players. "Because guys arent' gonna normally redshirt and then leave."

Purdue's season is fast approaching as it heads to Nebraska to take on Creighton in a charity road exhibition game on October 26th before hosting its final exhibition game against Grand Valley State on Octoboer 30th.

Pudue's regular season will tip-off on November 4th against Texas A&M Corpus Christi as Purdue looks to win its third straight Big Ten Title.