Purdue's Matt Painter Says Indiana Fans Need To Be More Supportive Of Next Coach

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Since Matt Painter took over as Purdue's coach in 2005, Indiana has had five full-time head coaches: Mike Davis, Kelvin Sampson, Tom Crean, Archie Miller and Mike Woodson.

After the 2024-25 season, it'll hire another one as Indiana announced on Feb. 7 that Woodson will retire following his fourth season at his alma mater. Once one of college basketball's top programs with five national championships, Indiana has made the Sweet 16 just four times this century.

The Hoosiers picked up a big win Sunday at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, defeating No. 13 Purdue 73-58, but they still have work to do to reach the NCAA Tournament.

After the game, Painter was asked to give his thoughts on the Indiana job and its place in the college basketball landscape.

"Yeah, I really don't have a thought on the job. Obviously we compete against them, and they're our rivals. The guy that's the coach here is a peer of mine. Like, even though you compete and want to beat somebody, you want to see other people be successful and keep their job, just like any of you guys would think the same thing about the other people sitting to your left and right. So, it's like anything. You gotta get a good person. You gotta get a good coach. You gotta get a guy to understand it. They've had a lot of turnover obviously."

"I think you gotta look at some of the common denominators here more than anything. I think that's an important piece right here, like don't beat yourself. Don't beat yourself. Let's support somebody. Try that out for once every now and then. When shit goes wrong, like do you think Purdue fans are happy about what just happened? See, a fan base isn't the people that Tweet. A fan base is the people when you're bleeding, they support you. They jump on and off things here way too much. Like, support your coach, man. Support your players. Don't Tweet negative things about them. Like, be supportive. See how that works for you."

"But they build him up like, and they over do things. Like, quit overdoing shit. Just accurately talk about what's actually happened. Don't get recruits and like 'It's Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen,' and then they come out here, and it's like, well, they're not Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. They're good college players. Like, then they build it up and then go, 'What's wrong?' Well, they're part of it. But it's not their total fan base. It's just that everyone has a bad percentage of their fan base now because of Twitter, and then we think that's their fan base. It's not our fan base. It's not their real fan base either."

"So I think that's an important piece. But it's hard for young people to hear all that and then go out and collectively play, like hey man, we're playing for you guys, but you dog us when we lose and we're the best when we win. Well, we're somewhere in between, right. So I think they need to learn from some of those things and support Scott Dolson and support the new coach and support the staff. But also kind of be grounded with everything, and I think they'll be able to have success."

"It's just a different world now. We have 18 teams. We're going to go into the name, image and likeness and the changes are going to be made here in April. So it'll be real interesting just to see the landscape for everything."

Matt Painter was asked what Indiana should look for and what fans should expect with their coaching search. His answer is worth your time 👏

“They jump on and off things way too much here. Support your team. Support your coach. Quit overdoing shit”pic.twitter.com/703QiBUCw7
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) February 23, 2025

Related stories on Indiana basketball