Purdue’s Painter won’t forget NCAA loss to FDU

• Myron Medcalf, ESPN

  • Personnel WriterOct 10, 2023, 03:30 PM ET Close Covers college basketball
  • Signed up with ESPN.com in 2011
  • Graduate of Minnesota State University, Mankato

Seven months after No. 1 seed Purdue suffered a loss to 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson in the NCAA competition, coach Matt Painter stated the defeat still bothers him.The loss was simply the second time in NCAA tournament history that a 16-seed had lost to a 1-seed following Virginia’s loss to UMBC in 2018.

“I do not think it will stay with me through the year,” Painter stated during Big Ten media day in Minneapolis on Tuesday. “I think it will stay with me forever. I wish it didn’t, but I think that becomes part of being competitive. I think that belongs to training.”

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1 Associated The loss also came a year after Purdue (3-seed) had lost to Saint Peter’s (15-seed) in the 2022 NCAA tournament.But Purdue is set

to complete for the national title again with the return of Zach Edey, the 7-foot-4 star who has an opportunity to end up being the second player to win the Wooden Award two times 40 years after Ralph Sampson Jr. achieved the feat at Virginia. The Boilermakers must be a top-five group in every reliable preseason survey in America. They’re ranked third in ESPN’s Way-Too-Early Top 25 poll.Painter said he understands the criticism about in 2015’s NCAA tournament exit and informed his team to accept in 2015’s result without running from it.” You do not sit around and shine your prizes,”Painter said.

“You relax and question why in the hell you couldn’t beat someone 17 years ago on a cold Wednesday night. But for us it’s part of a procedure. It becomes part of going out there and putting yourself in a great position. I believe we have actually had a lot of pushback, so I inform our guys about that. You need to understand that some of that pushback is true and you have to accept that. We have actually lost to some people where we’ve been the much better seed in the NCAA competition here in the past 4 or five years. … I constantly state I’m the common measure. Our staff is. We need to be able to make some modifications and do some different things.”