WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Welcome to the 500 Club, Matt Painter. Your nameplate is over there next to Greg McDermott and Mick Cronin. Yep, make room for another coach with 500 victories. It’s not a very large clubhouse and doesn’t need to be — there are now only 16 active members if you just count Division I victories, 21 if you count everything.
Let’s look around the room and see what the place is like.
There are four who have cut down nets as Division I national champions — Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Bill Self, Tom Izzo.
There are six more who have been to the Final Four — Rick Barnes, Mark Few, Kelvin Sampson, Dana Altman, Cronin and Painter.
There’s one who has never coached a game in the Division I tournament but has been there plenty of times in Division II. Samford’s Lennie Acuff.
There’s an Eagle Scout. Oregon’s Altman.
A guy who is in the Screen Actors Guild and once did commercials for Rice Krispies and Kentucky Fried Chicken. TCU’s Jamie Dixon.
A man whose wedding was officiated by his minister father. Gonzaga’s Few.
There’s a coach whose bloodlines go back to the Lumbee tribe in North Carolina. Houston’s Sampson.
A man with dual citizenship in the U.S. and Italy. Arkansas’ Calipari.
A father who is several spots lower on the Division I career coaching victory list than his son is on the Division I career scoring list. Creighton’s Greg McDermott, Doug’s dad.
Two of the members started coaching one game a season barefoot nearly 20 years ago, to promote getting shoes for those without them. Tulane’s Ron Hunter and Southern Illinois’ Scott Nagy.
There’s a coach who as a college player made 89.8 percent of his free throws and missed only 61 attempts in four seasons. Nevada’s Steve Alford. Also the only one on the list who played for a national champion.
There’s a native son of Iron Mountain in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where the temperature once hit 39 degrees below zero. Michigan State’s Izzo.
A high school valedictorian and summa cum laude graduate at Carnegie Mellon, Santa Clara’s Herb Sendek.
A former footballer who still is the top five at Bowling Green for highest punt average in a game. Oakland’s Greg Kampe.
There’s one coach whose son has grown more famous for being Caitlin Clark’s boyfriend. Penn’s Fran McCaffery.
A coach who once missed most of a season when he started having headaches and was diagnosed with an un-ruptured aneurysm. UCLA’s Cronin. Another who missed the NCAA tournament when he needed stents for his heart. Self.
Another who will live in NCAA tournament highlight eternity for falling off his stool when his son hit a buzzer-beater in a first round March Madness-style upset. Hunter.
There are four names on the list who have made the club by coaching at only one school — Izzo, Kampe, Few and Saint Mary’s Randy Bennett. Kampe has been at the same job for 42 years.
There’s also one who has done it at six places. Pitino.
There’s Jacksonville State’s Ray Harper, who once coached Kentucky Wesleyan to six consecutive Division II national championship games. He became only the second man to ever do that in any division. The first was named John Wooden.
There are several who became coaching names in bright-light locations but spent their playing days out among the wilderness. Barnes from Lenoir-Rhyne, Calipari from Clarion, Sampson from Pembroke State, Altman from Eastern New Mexico, Izzo from Northern Michigan.
And now there’s Matt Painter, a Purdue man officially making it Sunday in the same arena where he once played. He’s the only coach presently in the 500 Club who qualified with almost every victory at his alma mater. One day that might mean something to him. Currently, the No. 2 Boilermakers have bigger fish to fry.
“I think in time it does. Right now, we have a really good team. I’m trying to take in this win, not really the number of the win. Just take in the win, get up tomorrow and get ready for Memphis,” he said Sunday after Purdue pushed past Akron 97-79. “I would think it’s a big deal if it wasn’t me. But it is me, so I don’t think it’s a big deal.”
Now would be the time to recall it did not start well for Painter at Purdue, his first team going 9-19. That was 2006, and things have changed. This is a program on a roll. The Boilermakers have averaged 29 wins the past four seasons, and advanced to their only Final Four in the past 45 years. They have won 35 consecutive non-conference games in Mackey Arena, and are 7-1 the past three seasons in top-10 showdowns.. They’ve produced the Big Ten player of the year three seasons in a row, something no school has ever done before. They’ve had only two coaches in the past 46 seasons — Gene Keady and Painter, who once was Keady’s team captain.
Painter was gifted a game ball from his team Sunday night, then a good dousing of water. He took but a moment to reflect on the journey.
“I’ve yet to see a really good coach with bad players. It’s a players’ game,” he said. “Get the right players who fit together, get them on the bus, get them on time, tell them the truth and have a lot of fun with them.
“We’re not drafting people. We’re recruiting them and they’re going to say no to us at times. But how you navigate after people tell you no, that can really help or hurt your team. But sometimes you’re up against it . . . It’s still a difficult task to put a team together at times. It’s even more difficult in today’s game. But just try to learn from it, not be stubborn and do what’s best for Purdue.”
He should be in the club for quite a while since he’s only 55. Some of the others won’t be on the active list a lot longer. Pitino is 73, Barnes 71, Sampson and Izzo are 70. Then again, there should be some additions soon. Closing in on the landmark: Milwaukee’s Bart Lundy, Butler’s Thad Matta, Baylor’s Scott Drew.
So it’s an august group Painter joined Sunday night. What he’d really get excited about is to get in an even more exclusive place down the hall. The Champions’ Room. Only seven active coaches with titles to their names are in there.
