Revisionist History: What If Matt Painter Would Have Gone to Indiana?

Matt Painter owns Indiana right now, with the Purdue coach winning nine straight games against the Hoosiers and adding more pain to a program that's losing all the blue out of its blood. But what if Matt Painter's life would have gone down a different path?

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The game was over, and the writing was done. There were calls, texts and messages, and when you live in a house divided – and a state divided – I heard it all, gloating from the Purdue friends and family, glooming and dooming from the Indiana fans and relations, wondering if the Hoosiers would ever win another game.

Purdue has won nine games in a row in the bitter rivalry with Indiana, dating all the way back to Feb. 20, 2016. It's 1,843 days and counting now since Indiana came out on top, when kids in kindergarten weren't even born yet. Purdue is a top-four seed in the Big Ten Tournament, and their NCAA Tournament ticket is already punched. They are winning games with freshmen – a lot of them – and the future looks bright.

Indiana fans can't envision a future at all. The future looks dim, the present with four years of Archie Miller hasn't been good and the clock is ticking on 34 years now since Indiana won a national championship. 

Thirty-four very long years without a championship. 

Matt Painter owns Indiana right now. Purdue fans post memes of Assembly Hall with the words "OUR HOUSE'' emblazoned across the top and the 'P' logo on center court. Indiana fans mumble and grumble, and every conversation ends the same way, with the same five words.

"I wish it were different.''

And what if it was?

What if we could hop in the "Back to the Future'' DeLorean, punch in a new date – say July 4, 1988 – and step on the gas to get to 88 miles per hour. Take us back, and chart a new course of history with the space-time continuum. Have a little silliness today before the seriousness kicks in.

It starts with one simple event. Matt Painter, a really good player from Delta High School up near Muncie, gets the dream scholarship offer from Bob Knight that he's been waiting for his whole life.

And he takes it.

When fiction becomes reality

Forty years of writing about real events is one thing, but I've dabbled in fiction, too, in my basketball/mafia novel "The Ties That Bind,'' and it's fun writing in an alternate reality sometimes. So follow along here in this very light-hearted look at how things can change with just one decision creating our new space-time continuum, and how it changes the path of Indiana basketball forever.

And let's start in the summer of 1988.

Matt Painter is one of the better high school players in Indiana. Not the best, but pretty darn good. There's some modest Big Ten interest as he enters his senior year at Delta High School. He's been a huge Indiana fan growing up, and it's his dream school. Purdue has offered, as have others, but Coach Knight still hasn't.

Painter is playing AAU basketball that summer and Pat Knight, the coach's son, is one of his teammates. So is Pat Graham, who's already committed to Indiana. They're all back at the Knight house after a tournament, Painter's best of the summer. At the Knight kitchen table, Painter sits down and tells Knight, ''if you offer me, I'll take it, and I promise you I will never let you down. I am the most loyal kid you'll ever meet and I'll work my tail off to be the best player I can be every day.''

Knight has pondered an offer for a year or more, and thinks about it for a few days. They already have a lot of guards in that class – Greg and Pat Graham and Todd Leary, plus forward Calbert Cheaney and center Chris Lawson – but Knight decides to offer anyway. 

Painter says yes, of course, and then makes the hardest call he's ever had to make, to this day. He calls Gene Keady at Purdue and tells him he's going to Indiana instead of Purdue.

Playing days at Indiana

Just a few weeks before Indiana is set to open the 1989-90 season, Knight sits Painter down in his office. "You're not going to play a lot this year, there are too many players ahead of you. But you can contribute a lot more to this program in your fifth year in 1994 than you can this year, so we're going to redshirt you.''

Matt Painter thinks that's a wonderful idea, and files it away. (Painter loves redshirting. He has had that same EXACT conversation with several of his Purdue players, most recently Brandon Newman and Mason Gillis.)

He plays some in the 1991 season, makes some threes and guards some people. He plays a lot more in 1992, with Pat Graham missing the season. He's a worthwhile reserve who plays hard and becomes a fan favorite.

And then there's the Final Four. TV Teddy Valentine is blowing his whistle left and right and the Hoosiers are in foul trouble against Duke. Knight calls on Painter early, and he delivers with solid play. Indiana stays closer (no double-digit leads like in real life) and when Todd Leary gets hot late and hits three three-pointers, Indiana has a chance to win. 

Painter is in the game for the final possession instead of Jamal Meeks. He has a look at a three himself, but he's a smart player and knows Leary is on fire. He finds him with a perfect pass and Leary hits it. Indiana beats Duke, and then beats Michigan again in the finals.

Indiana is your 1992 national champion and Bob Knight has his fourth title. And Matt Painter has a championship ring.

We could say the same thing about 1993, but that's too fictitious. And Painter finishes out his career in 1994, a year Indiana could have used some guard help, with a solid senior year. He gives a great speech on Senior Night, thanks Coach Knight for all he's done for him, and thanks him for setting the example he needed to want to be come a coach himself. There's nothing better than being a Hoosier, he says.

The coaching path begins

Bob Knight pulls the strings in his coaching tree, and he sends Painter over to tiny Manchester College to coach with Steve Alford, the 1987 national champion who's in his fourth year there. It's a good first job for a kid right out of college, and Alford and Painter hit it off fine.

A year later, Alford is hired at Southwest Missouri, and Painter goes with him. They coach together for two years, and Knight is watching closely. Painter is becoming a hot assistant, and when Dan Dakich leaves Indiana to become the head coach at Bowling Green, Knight hires Painter to replace him.

Knight and Painter spend three years together attached at the hip. They do good things together. Painter has a great relationship with the players, and Knight trusts him explicitly, despite dealing with his own "zero tolerance'' issues with the university administration. 

Then on a September day in 2000, Knight and Painter are leaving Assembly Hall to get lunch. An Indiana student, a freshman named Kent Harvey, says, ''Hey Knight, what's up?''

You know the rest. And the Bob Knight era soon ends. 

Indiana fires Knight and the administration knows they need a loyal Hoosier to keep this team together. Dane Fife, the spokesman for the players, demands that the administration hire Painter, or they're all leaving. Indiana does the right thing, and does just that. They give Painter a four-year deal, not wasting time on an interim tag (like they did with Mike Davis.)

In 2002, Indiana goes on a run in the NCAA Tournament. In the championship game, a smarter and wiser Matt Painter hits all the right buttons. He decides that it's important to play a tough kid like A.J, Moye more than seven minutes, and the Hoosiers beat Maryland for the school's SEVENTH national title. 

Matt Painter now has two rings, one as a player and one as a coach.

A completely different 21st century

On this space-time continuum, there is no Mike Davis, no Kelvin Sampson, no Tom Crean and no Archie Miller. There is only Matt Painter, a Bob Knight legacy, for 21 years. 

Indiana is good every year, and Painter is a Hoosier hero. And when Dakich gets fired at Bowling Green, Painter says he should just stay out of coaching. "Get a job on the radio,'' he tells him, "You'd be good at that.''

He knows how to attack a zone, so you know that 2013 ends differently, too. Matt Painter runs great zone offense. Indiana, the No. 1 team in the country, makes eight three-pointers (like Michigan did against Syracuse in the Final Four) and wins its EIGHTH national title. 

Matt Painter now has three rings, two as a coach and one as a player. 

Yeah, I know it's reach and this is way out there. The only conversation in 2021 would be when Painter gets his third ring like Knight. What we know about Matt Painter in real life is that he is fiercely loyal to his school and its history. 

It just would have been a different school.

And that brings us all back to reality. There's only been one losing streak to Purdue longer than this one, and that was way back from 1908 to 1914, more than a century ago. Matt Painter and Purdue own Indiana right now, and there is no end in sight.

Sometimes fiction is better than fact. Matt Painter loves it at Purdue and certainly wouldn't engage in this tomfoolery. 

Fact, in 2021, is tough, because right now, reality bites.