Matt Painter heard the voices. They weren't hard to hear. They weren't just coming from purdue4everball2423 on twitter. His own coaches thought they might need to change. It hadn't been working. For three straight years Purdue walked into the NCAA Tournament as a favorite, and for three straight tournaments it walked away disappointed, fallen by double-digit seeds in March's cruelest test.

I don't know if Matt Painter is a religious man or not in the traditional sense.

But I know he's pious for process.

Painter's conviction has been derided, mocked as stubborn, and left as an example of the impossibility of Purdue's ability to get over the hump.

The college sports world, marred by results obsession, lost in the weeds of its bloodthirsty need for a narrative, has finally met its match in Painter.

Now Matt Painter is in the Final Four and this week is a coronation of the coach who stuck to his analytical guns, and his own basketball genius as he tweaked around the edges of a program he knew could win.

"You always lose the last game of the year unless you win a national championship," Painter tells me on Thursday in Phoenix, site of the Final Four. "I've always dove into what we're doing and tried to pick at what we're doing to make improvements. When you get beat in the first round of the NCAA Tournament by a 16 seed, that doesn't change anything."

As all men of faith, Matt Painter has been tested. North Texas, St. Peter's, and Fairleigh Dickinson all had their chapters, but on Eastern Sunday, Painter rose up above the masses to claim his first piece of Final Four twine.

Hard to not think everything has changed. Hard to not picture Painter as a prophet.

Matt Painter has his own commandments, too.

Get the ball to Zach Edey. Shoot threes. Defend to your rules. It almost sounds simple as he explains the tweaks he's made to get Purdue from first round exit to final four in the tournament.

"I felt like we needed some more athleticism, some more quickness and skill," Painter said about what changed this year. "We added that."

Camden Heide and Myles Colvin are representatives of that athleticism and quickness, but also the skill. Both freshmen play with size with Colvin at 6-5 and Heide at 6-7, but they're also both shooting over 40% from three while being the two best athletes on the team. It hasn't been an easy transition. Playing both of them means there's less minutes on the bench for guys that have been at Purdue a lot longer.

Senior Ethan Morton and junior Caleb Furst have both fallen out of the lineup. Neither of them logged a minute in Purdue's Elite Eight win over Tennessee.

Furst and Morton both represent a time at Purdue that the privilege of expectations first sank its teeth into Purdue.

Purdue has never played a game where it was ranked #1 in the country in program history without Morton and Furst on the roster. They were cornerstones of Painter's shift back to the principles he's always had but didn't always follow. They're exemplary teammates, good defenders, but they don't stretch the floor.

Now they're watching Painter's deepest March run from the bench.

Painter's patience has paid off this season. He knew that last year's team was close, and his guys were doing the right thing on the court. Unfortunately, despite recruiting a roster of shooters, they weren't making shots. They were turning the ball over too much. Those were things to fix, not things that would give him a crisis of faith.

Purdue was 32.3% from three in 2023. This year, its 40.6% mark going into the Final Four is the second best in the country.

"I thought we had some really good shooters that were shooting 32% that should shoot 42%," Painter told me. "We had guys shooting 28% that could shoot 38%."

"That's come to fruition," Painter continued. "When you look at Braden Smith, he shot a good percentage as a freshman, but he didn't shoot much. Fletcher Loyer had a much better percentage. Mason Gillis has shot a better percentage.Their percentages weren't bad before, but they had a chance to be elite. Now you throw in Cam Heide, Myles Colvin. I've really went to a rotation of more people that can shoot the ball because I think offensively that raises the value of Zach and that raises the value of Braden."

In Purdue's loss to Fairleigh Dickinson in last year's NCAA Tournament, it shot 5 of 26 from three.

But more damning was what looked like a Purdue team that didn't want to take those threes. But Painter was stubborn about his guys, believing that a lot of his answers were already in his locker room. Instead of wholesale changes, he grabbed one guard who added scoring, speed, defense, and character to the locker room in Lance Jones.

Someone who's never lacked in confidence, on a night when Purdue had made only 2 three-pointers late against Tennessee, Jones sank the team's third three, providing the two possession cushion that Purdue would ride to a 72-66 win in the Elite Eight.

Jones is just Painter's second transfer in the last four season. That is the lowest mark for a high major in the country, as Painter likes to remind us.

He picked the right disciple.

When Painter rounded out his answer he hit at the crux of his sermon.

"At the end of the day, man, if you can't score 60 points in an NCAA tournament game, you don't deserve to win," Painter told me. "We did that back to back years."

Purdue lost to Fairleigh Dickinson 63-58. You'll excuse if his gospel has a touch of the exaggeration to it, in Purdue's loss to St. Peter's it did get to 64 points.

But for Painter, the equation was simple. Defense was important, but their salvation would come with scoring.

Purdue has dropped 78, 108, 80, and 72 points in its first four NCAA Tournament games and now Purdue is headed towards the promised land that Painter first believed in.

Purdue will get a chance to convert more believers on Saturday when it takes on #11 seed NC State for a spot in the National Championship game.