Purdue head coach Matt Painter thinks the claims that Power Five programs do not schedule mid-major schools is a bunch of malarkey.
Following the Boilermakers’ 108-74 win over the No. 15 seed Queens University in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday, Painter blasted claims made by mid-major coaches Travis Steele of Miami (Ohio) and Flynn Clayman of High Point that scheduling competitive non-conference games has becoming increasingly difficult for smaller programs.
“Every high-major plays mid-majors … they’re just saying we’re not playing them,” Painter said Friday night, according to CBS Sports. “It’s really a back-handed compliment. We’ve proved ourselves. The guy at Miami (Ohio) says, ‘Nobody will play us’ … well, Akron’s been the best team in the league. Kent State’s been the best team in the league; we’ve played them.
“Year before that, Toledo’s been a damn good team in that league and almost won it this year in the (conference) tournament. We’ve shown ourselves, but we’re also doing it from a NET standpoint, because playing those teams help you.”
Painter added that, in regards to NET rankings, a Power Five school playing too many mid-major programs will ultimately be more harmful for them in the long run, and that coaches like Steele and Clayman would do the same as him if they were in his shoes, saying they would be “bozos” if they didn’t.
“You’ve got to keep things in perspective because if he was in my position, like, you’re going to play 11 non-conference games next year and it’s going to go to 12 … we play six high-major games and five mid-major teams,” he added. “When they say they don’t play mid-majors … we played five mid-majors this year. But if he was in our position, he’d do the same thing we were doing. I didn’t set the NET rankings, the NET rankings set themselves.
“I’m going to go by it. I’m going to figure it out. The coach’s that don’t look at the NET rankings and figure out how to schedule are bozos. They’re absolute bozos. You are going to do what is best for your institution so you can get in the (NCAA) tournament and help your seed.”
Painter’s comments come after Clayman took some shots at large programs following his school’s upset win over No. 5 seed Wisconsin on Thursday, claiming that “nobody” would play them.
“It looks pretty obvious to me that high-majors need to play mid-majors early in the season,” Clayman said in his on-court interview. “Because they said we didn’t play nobody. We played somebody now.”
Although Miami (Ohio) was the only unbeaten Division 1 program headed into their conference tournament, they were nearly left out of March Madness entirely due to its low strength of schedule.
“We had to basically be perfect in the whole regular season to get an at-large, but yet we’re going to go get win a game tonight, and we can advance far into the tournament,” Steele said on Wednesday. “The reason people love March Madness is they love to see, quote-unquote, upsets.
“This wasn’t an upset tonight. At all. But people are going to say that it was.”