Matt Painter's stands against the portal's tide

Even the strongest of NIL and college athlete's rights supporters are watching the carnage of this portal season with some uneasiness. Players should not be limited in what they can make and for who, but there is something unsettling about the free for all that NCAA's lack of foresight and control has created in the college basketball landscape.

College basketball players will get the brunt of the blame, with former players going to twitter to go after current players who appear to be moving from one school to another and in terms making more and more money. (Ignoring the fact that these moves also equate to going to more and more winning programs.)

The tide against the portal has never been so strong, and yet it's never been more necessary of a ride for coaches and players.

Players are getting handed the brunt of reaction and criticism, but these are not player problems. To blame a player for leaving another school for any reason is like walking into an office and yelling at everyone for having a job previously because this one has a higher pay check, or because it made daycare easier. Or for any reason at all - it's not in your place to judge what someone else chooses to do for their life.

It's strange that a scoreboard and a jersey makes people think it does.

Fans and former players and people take a certain ownership to sports, particularly collegiate, and it makes us all a little too comfortable in presenting our ideals and morals onto other people's lives. It makes us confuse the lines between where loyalty and choice should be placed.

But it's not the player's fault that the landscape is as chaotic as it is. Players didn't decide to have the portal open during the NCAA Tournament, a fact that still is laughable for its execution.

These are the truths of college basketball now. While teams play for a national title, assistant coaches are tasked with searching through the portal, re-recruiting their own players, and hoping no one gets into their player's ear during an NCAA Tournament run and causing a disturbance in the locker room.

The landscape of college basketball is a minefield and the coaches and programs are being forced to sprint out into it to fill roster spots while starting the shot clock early.

So excuse them, if those coaches look a little exhausted and are beyond irritated at the landscape they've found themselves in.

In fact, expect that to be case everywhere...

Except for one coach, who was comfortably sitting on the sidelines the last time we saw him, watching his team play for a National Title for the first time since 1969 across from the Hurley hurricane happening just down the court.

Matt Painter will be sitting on the sideline for the portal season as well, barring a collection of surprise exits from his program, Purdue doesn't have room to add a player from the portal. While UConn wins back to back titles, and Big Ten teams swap players and fill voids, Painter currently has too many players signed to play at Purdue.

Painter has six incoming freshmen and eight players on scholarship that at the moment are all set to return to Purdue next season. Painter's only allowed 13.

As teams try to keep their heads above water around Purdue in hurricane winds, Painter is taking a lazy river back around to another top-ten team built by the freshmen he picked and bet on.

That won't stop the haters from assuming that their problem is Purdue's problem, but also, Painter knows that this tranquility won't last forever.

After Purdue's loss to UConn, and after his initial press conference, reporters crowded around him just outside Purdue's locker room. He was asked if this year validated his approach.

"The landscape is changing and where do that go," Painter said, contemplating while answering a question that's been hanging around his program building for the last year. "Where are the guard rails in that world? We've been able to keep doing it the same way. It'll be interesting if we can still keep doing it the same way. I'd think we can. We have major support at our place. So that's not gonna be an issue. But we're not gonna get away from the education and the people, and like growing and developing guys. I hope I don't have to do that. I love the David Jenks and the Lance Jones' of the world. I just don't want to take four to five guys that now are coming to your place and want the same role."

"When in reality, when you take Lance Jones it's perfect, but it's one guy."

"If we have to do that, we'll continue to do that," Painter continued. "But I do think it comes and finds us at some point. Not everything is perfect."

From a view up high Painter can appear to just be staying still at times. It's all that peace that's come with finding truth in himself and who he is as a coach. It's why he didn't panic when his team lost last year even when others wanted wholesale changes.

Painter has acknowledged that it's going to get him - one year, one team - he's going to need to go into the portal.

But until that day, it's not a lazy river if you keep standing against the current.