GLENDALE, Ariz. — Other Big Ten Conference coaches walked into the high school point guard’s living room and told him lots of things he wanted to hear, and very little he did not. The coach at Purdue at the time, Gene Keady, informed the recruit if he signed with the Boilermakers, he’d either need to enroll in summer school when he got there, or get a job.
Matt Painter, then a promising prospect from Delta High School in Muncie, Ind., didn’t love that. His dad did.
“He said, ‘That’s the only person who told you the truth,’” Painter recalled.