March 21, 2026, 8:09 p.m. ET
- Miami (Ohio) struggled to schedule high-major opponents, however different groups in its convention efficiently scheduled harder video games.
- Painter said that coaches should prioritize their personal program’s finest pursuits and NCAA match resume when scheduling.
- Despite a weaker non-conference schedule, Miami (Ohio) nonetheless earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
ST. LOUIS — Matt Painter did what Matt Painter does so nicely and so eloquently, Friday night time, when he supplied perhaps essentially the most measured response but to the talk about high-major responsibility for mid-major needs. It was not simply the message, however the man, that made his feedback so vital.
Travis Steele’s exceptional undefeated common season this winter with Miami (Ohio) reignited what has turn into an annual dialogue over how mid-majors are supposed to game the analytics that make or break your NCAA Tournament resume after they battle for high quality nonconference video games. It reappears yearly however received significantly heated this time round, as a result of of 1) the acute nature of Miami’s success, 2) the RedHawks’ pedestrian nonconference schedule and three) the broader query of whether or not high-majors have an obligation to present mid-majors the possibility to beef these schedules up.
Advocating within the weeks main into Selection Sunday for his group — within the occasion it didn’t win the MAC’s computerized bid — Steele urged repeatedly the RedHawks couldn’t discover high-major applications to schedule them. Yet Painter’s Purdue stands as a direct contradiction to that.
“If he was in our position,” Painter mentioned, “he’d be doing the same thing.”
It was vital for Painter to talk when and as he did. In a debate that, like a lot in fashionable sports activities, grew to become too quickly zero sum, Purdue’s veteran coach was the proper voice for the argument he delivered. It was not simply what he mentioned, however that he was the one who mentioned it.
Particularly as a result of he’s proper.
Purdue disproves Miami Ohio’s scheduling argument
Miami’s argument struggles to carry water exactly as a result of of applications like Painter’s Purdue.
It’s not that the RedHawks can not discover high-major opponents — they performed six over Steele’s first three years in Oxford. It’s that they might not discover the suitable companions this time.
Purdue, by means of related instance, performed two MAC groups (Akron and Kent State) ranked within the KenPom prime 175 this season. Indiana performed Miami itself twice within the three seasons earlier to this one. Kent State discovered takers in each Auburn and Alabama in 2024-25, and Toledo has performed Houston, Purdue and Michigan State all prior to now two years.
What Miami couldn’t discover have been high-major groups that needed Miami. What Miami didn’t add have been mid-major groups that may.
Consider their contemporaries once more. Toledo scheduled eventual NCAA Tournament groups Wright State and Troy this 12 months. Ohio added Illinois State and St. Bonaventure. Akron performed (and misplaced to) Yale and Murray State, and nonetheless sits greater than 20 locations greater in KenPom at this time than Miami.
Steele, to his credit score, additionally scheduled Wright State, beating the Raiders in December in Dayton. As of Saturday afternoon, that was the one nonconference opponent Miami performed this season higher than No. 243 in Pomeroy’s rankings. Akron performed 4 groups ranked comfortably greater than that. For Kent State, that quantity was six.
“You are going to do what is best for your institution, so you can get in the tournament and help your seed,” Painter mentioned. “We’ve played mid-majors, but everybody plays mid-majors. Every high-major plays mid-majors. They’re just saying they’re not playing them, and it’s really a backhanded compliment.”
Coaches’ first loyalty is to their applications
This isn’t a criticism of Miami, actually. It reads like one nevertheless it isn’t.
Steele did attempt to schedule tougher — Matt Brown lined a number of high-majors the RedHawks approached, in his wonderful Extra Points e-newsletter — however, introduced his choices, made a unique name ultimately.
That was a selection, simply the identical because the groups that informed Miami no. And it left the RedHawks battling the computer systems when there may need been one other means.
“I didn’t set the NET rankings. The NET rankings set themselves,” Painter mentioned. “But I’m gonna go by it. Like, I’m gonna figure it out.”
This is the place the argument will get difficult. What responsibility of care does Purdue owe Miami? Or Illinois, Toledo? Or Michigan, Kent State?
Yes, the local weather is worsening for mid-major coaches and applications. Not simply in scheduling however in roster development, retention and improvement, and subsequently within the elementary effort to exist. And sure, too many power-conference coaches are fast to show vulturous after they see high-major options on mid-major rosters.
But there’s additionally a proverbial continental divide right here, when the deserves of the argument reverse circulation from one route to the opposite. Balancing atop it’s a delicate train.
The pure distillation of Painter’s place is right. Coaches should do what’s finest for their applications.
Not desirous to schedule Miami particularly — in a season when the RedHawks outperformed expectations to turn into one thing so excessive nobody might have anticipated it — doesn’t make them villains. It makes them accountable. And Miami’s personal convention rivals confirmed it’s nonetheless attainable to beef up your numbers in different methods.
“You’ve got to get wired to do what’s best for the NET,” Painter mentioned. “When you’re a mid-major guy and you say those things, and now you get a high-major job, you’ve got to be careful. You’re talking with a forked tongue there.”
His argument travels in each instructions. The “bozos” (a phrase he used) Painter refers to aren’t simply mid-major coaches, but additionally high-major colleagues who schedule too softly after which discover themselves brief of alternatives come March.
That didn’t apply to Steele’s group this 12 months. Armed with a nonconference schedule power ranked within the 360s nationally, Miami entered the sphere of 68 this month because the lowest-ranked at-large group in each KenPom and the NET, then gained a sport as soon as it received there.
Schedule be damned.
Why Matt Painter was the suitable voice for this
This is why Painter is the suitable individual to ship this argument.
He has been a mid-major coach. He constructed Purdue from the foundations after taking on from Gene Keady. His Boilermakers persistently search powerful nonconference schedules full cease, and don’t draw back from enjoying the MAC’s finest. He’s speaking now as his group sits among the many favorites to achieve this 12 months’s Final Four.
Which is why it’s vital he mentioned what he did. From a unique coach, the identical argument may need rang hole or sounded petty. From Painter, who has seen the sport from either side and has the bonafides to again him up, it was pitch good.
He additionally is aware of he’s not alone, which is why (whether or not he meant to or not) he was talking for extra coaches than simply himself.
“I know Michigan played good people. I know Michigan State played good people,” Painter mentioned. “The people that are looking to move their seed line are looking at that stuff. Some people aren’t that way.”
College basketball has lots of issues. Some have been foreseeable. Some are correctable.
This just isn’t essentially one of these, largely as a result of Miami received the chance it deserved anyway. It didn’t matter who informed the RedHawks no, and it didn’t matter they misplaced in their first sport within the MAC Tournament. They received their likelihood and did one thing with it.
Like a lot else in school basketball, scheduling resembles artwork as a lot as math. Painter is correct: It may be approached scientifically, particularly within the analytics period. But simply as one information level doesn’t make a development, one group’s expertise doesn’t create a disaster.
Miami loved an impressive season in 2026, with or with out high-major assist. But the RedHawks have been by no means obliged that, nor have been they disadvantaged of it for some sinister function, and Painter was proper — and the suitable individual — to say it.
