John Fanta
College Basketball Broadcaster and Reporter
He grew up 90 miles north of West Lafayette, Indiana, in Valparaiso, but it was not a foregone conclusion that Robbie Hummel was going to play basketball for the Purdue Boilermakers. In fact, Matt Painter was very candid with him on his high school visit.
“I visited Purdue, and they had an offer out to another player who was a really good player, Marques Johnson, who ended up going to Tennessee, but the thing I appreciated about my first visit there was that Matt Painter was really honest about it,” said Hummel, a two-time AP All-American honorable mention and a two-year NBA player with the Minnesota Timberwolves from 2013-15. “Coach Painter said, ‘I have this many scholarships and this many offers out. I’ve got an offer out to this kid in the class of 2006. If he takes it, I won’t have a scholarship. But if he doesn’t, then I will, and I want you to be here if that’s the case.’ So, that was my first real interaction with him and I appreciated the fact that he told me what was going on and was really honest about it. As this kid went elsewhere, I started to play better.”
Honesty is part of who Painter is, and it’s why Purdue is finally getting its reward under the 19th-year head coach. It’s why Painter and Hummel, two Boilermaker alums, embraced and cried on Sunday afternoon when Purdue beat Tennessee, 72-66, to advance to the program’s first Final Four since 1980 behind national player of the year Zach Edey’s 40 points and 16 rebounds.
The long and winding road, one in which the Boilers were on the wrong side of humiliation with losses to Saint Peter’s and FDU in back-to-back NCAA Tournaments, was washed away on Easter Sunday. Hummel, who called Mackey Arena home from 2007-12 and was a four-time All-Big Ten selection, knows the trials and tribulations of this program better than anybody.
Ahead of Saturday’s showdown between the Boilermakers and No. 11 seed NC State, the Purdue legend and FOX Sports commentator joined me for a Q&A to examine the journey of this season’s team and what makes Painter special.
John Fanta: Now that it has been a couple of days since a historic Easter Sunday for the Purdue Boilermakers, how would you reflect on those couple of hours in Detroit and what it means for your alma mater to be marching on to the Final Four?
“That’s a really good question. I was shocked at what I felt like after the game. I sat there and watched, and talked about it on the radio broadcast with Kevin Kugler, and I went and got some food after the game, and then got back to my hotel and laid on my couch and stared at the ceiling. I felt like I played in the game and I didn’t do anything.
It was a really high-level college basketball game and Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht was unbelievable. But Zach Edey was also unbelievable and just a little bit better. And I think because of all of the setbacks that Purdue has had since the 80s, whether that’s the Three Amigos [Todd Mitchell, Troy Lewis and Everette Stephens] losing to Kansas State [in the 1988 Sweet 16], or Glenn Robinson’s team losing in the 1994 Elite Eight to Grant Hill and Duke, or you look at the 2000 team that loses to a Wisconsin team in the Elite Eight that they beat twice in the regular season, or my season-ending knee injury in 2010 [when the team was 24-3], or the Virginia loss in 2019, or the Isaac Haas elbow, which ironically was in Detroit in the same building we were sitting in on Sunday, there’s been so many times that it’s felt like it’s our time, and it’s just come up a little bit short.
This team, losing to Fairleigh Dickinson last year, then hearing about it as much as they did, you could see the singular focus throughout the season, but especially in the NCAA Tournament when this group was saying. ‘this is about making a run and getting over the hump.’
Yes, they still have work to do, and I know this group is locked in on that, but this is a big burden lifted off the shoulders of Purdue’s basketball program. And really, they’ve had so much success except for winning in this tournament, and now you see that, and they’ve got a real opportunity here to cut the nets down in Phoenix.
UConn is playing great, and NC State is playing like a team of destiny, and Alabama shoots a million 3s and will probably shoot 55 of them in the game on Saturday [against UConn]. But I think Purdue has got to love the way they’re playing, the toughness they’re playing with and the fact they have the best player in America.”
Let’s stay with Zach Edey. To be the best player in America, and arguably the most criticized player in the country with the whistles and foul debates, what does it say about the makeup of him that allows him to keep rising to the occasion and silencing doubters?
“Every time you feel like ‘What more can he do?’ he keeps finding ways to outdo himself. I kind of felt like that when he came back to school with him being the national player of the year. This guy was absolutely incredible last year. Can he actually build on that performance? Well, the answer is yes, because every time you think he’s hit the ceiling, you realize that he was just scratching the surface. To have 40 and 16 against a team that has Dalton Knecht, who’s another first-team All-American that is just going berserk, and Tennessee had no answer for Edey. He makes his free throws, and the counters that we saw from him were amazing. He wants to get to his right jump hook, and rightfully so, because that’s his best post move, but he went to his left hand multiple times, and then got there with an up-and-under as well. He made some big-time plays and post moves late in that game.
I’m pretty blown away by the level of hate that we see for him [Edey]. I’ve played with many 7-footers, and many of them are not productive. Many of them only play because they’re tall. Many of them can’t rebound outside their area. Many of them can’t make a post-move. Just because you’re tall doesn’t mean you are good. But there has become this narrative that he is only good because he is tall and that’s pretty funny to me. It just shows the level of not understanding the game because he does dominate the game in so many ways.
Defensively, he’s so improved. He’s been able to switch ball screens this year and do a nice job of containing the bounce. If you do get by him, a lot of times, he’s putting the ball in the bleachers. The block on [Dalton] Knecht on Sunday was a Major League play. That is such a big play in the game, and he blocks that beautifully. Now, does he sometimes get away with fouls? Yes, all players do. The Gonzaga game is a great example. I thought he should have had two fouls in the first half. I thought he fouled Anton Watson on a drive and I know he fouled Ryan Nembhard on a rebound. He tackled him. There are missed calls. When you are that big, that strong and that skilled the way that he is, of course you’re going to draw fouls. You put pressure on the defense and the officials. In order to keep him out, it’s like when I used to have to guard Zach Randolph. Yeah, I’m fouling the hell out of him because he is stronger than me. He is bigger than me. What else am I going to do? I’ve got to put two hands on him. I can’t stop him.
Does he [Edey] foul? Yeah, he does. Every player in America gets away with fouling in games. Does he generate a ton of fouls? Yes, he does, because there are people hanging on him. There are people trying to move him, and he’s bigger, better and stronger than everybody. So, what option do you have? It doesn’t make sense to me.
These fan bases this year have become convinced that the fouls have to be even. And, you’ve got to take a look at the bigger picture. How many fouls per game does this team average? Purdue is a team that doesn’t foul that much at all. Looking at their body of work, they’re in the top 40 or 50 nationally in fewest fouls per game. Tennessee is in the 270s. They foul a lot. They’re aggressive. They try to turn you over. They want to punk you out physically.
Edey leads the country in fouls drawn, free throws attempted and free throws made. That’s just what he does. But, I get why, as a fan base, you would feel aggrieved, but in some of these games, you’ve got teams shooting jumpers because Edey is such a good shot blocker, you’re staying out of there. You’re not attacking that. I understand, but you can’t think, ‘well we committed 16 fouls and they committed 16 fouls. Great officiating!’ That’s not the way it works.”
Let’s turn to the man leading this whole operation, Matt Painter. What makes him different from just any other coach?
“It’s not to say that other coaches don’t do this because there are certainly ones who do, but the level of care that he shows his guys that are currently playing and his guys that have played for him, it’s not just one of those things where you look at him as your coach for four years. I truly am so thankful that as a 16-year-old kid, I made a good decision to go and play for him because he’s great X’s and O’s wise. He cares about his players after they’re done playing. He has gone above and beyond for so many guys after they are at Purdue.
I also look at the fact that he bridges the gap from Gene Keady in the 80s and 90s to what you have now. And, he’s perfect for it because: A. He’s a great coach and B. He’s a basketball junkie and C. He played for Keady. He has just done an unbelievable job including people who didn’t play for Keady. If you played at Purdue in the 60s or 70s, before Gene Keady got there, you still feel like you’re part of the program. I’ve talked with so many guys where they played at, let’s say, any Big Ten school and their coach has been fired or moved on, and you just don’t feel like you’re nearly as part of the program as what you were when it’s your guy. That’s a real problem across a lot of programs, I think, because you get tunnel vision into your team and the guys that you’ve coached because you know them better. That’s not a diss to some of these coaches, but Coach Painter has done such a good job of including everybody.
You see the way that Zach Edey reacts to Gene Keady and Coach Keady getting to go on the trips. When I was playing at Purdue, Coach Keady was on every trip, so we got to know him really, really well. And I remember growing up and thinking that he was scary. I remember being like, ‘Man, I don’t know if I want to play for him. He’s yelling at those guys along with Bobby Knight.’ Then you get to meet him, and you realize how hilarious he really is. He is a great guy to be around. Now, he was hard on those dudes, there’s no doubt about that. He demanded excellence, but to see the way that the team reacts to him, and Coach Painter is the perfect bridge to all of that.
He’s a great guy, a great coach and he was the perfect fit at Purdue. It shows you how important fit is and how important consistency is. And we’ve had two coaches at Purdue since the early 80s, much like Michigan State with Jud Heathcote and Tom Izzo.”
You said at 16, you made the right decision, and you’re so happy that you did. What led you to making that decision to go to Purdue in the first place and was it love at first sight?
“No, it wasn’t, actually. You know, I was one of those kids that in eighth grade, I’m 5-foot-8. Then, as a freshman in high school, I’m 6-foot-5. As a sophomore, I am 6-foot-7. As a junior, I’m 6-foot-8. So, I grew a lot and got a lot better. I was playing on the national AAU circuit for a Nike team out of Northwest Indiana with E’Twaun Moore and Luke Harangody, a lot of really good players. Scott Martin, who went to Purdue with us as a freshman [before transferring to Notre Dame]. He was my high school teammate. And, getting to know E’Twaun, we really enjoyed playing together. I think he liked it because I passed him the ball. I was one of those guys who wouldn’t shoot. I played a lot of point guard in high school, so I didn’t shoot a ton, so I would kind of distribute, and E’Twaun could score. He could really score at Purdue. It was interesting to see him evolve into more of a combo guard in the NBA. He really made the right play doing that, but he was more of a scorer in high school and college, and we really enjoyed playing together. JaJuan Johnson was already committed. Paul Lusk did such a good job. Cuonzo Martin did such a good job recruiting our class and bringing all of us in. I liked Chris Kramer, I really liked Keaton Grant. We had a great little core there of those classes of 2006 and 2007.
I did have some schools that fell off the radar. I liked Indiana, but Mike Davis got fired. I liked NC State, but Herb Sendek left for Arizona State, which is ironic because it’s Purdue-NC State in this Final Four game. But, yeah, Coach Painter and his staff did such a good job recruiting us. They sold us on, ‘We’re losing a lot and there’s going to be playing time available. We need good players, and you’re going to play close to home. You guys can play together, and let’s build something here.’ And that’s why I think it’s so gratifying to finally see a Final Four, because I saw it in the locker room when we would watch film on these old couches, and people would fall asleep, and we’d watch any way we could.
Now, they’ve got an unbelievable film room and an unbelievable locker room. The commitment of Purdue, the commitment of keeping Coach Painter when he could have left for Missouri in 2011. It’s been really cool to see the school commit, the athletic department commit, and now you can see the fruits of your labor.”
Let’s turn to the Boilermakers’ backcourt. It felt like last year, in the midst of that loss to FDU, the freshman guards got criticized, but it was easily forgotten that they were only in their first year of college basketball. Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer – how rare is it to see a pair of college sophomores that are performing at this elite level, and do you feel as though because they’re on the same team as Edey, they should get more love?
I think it also flies under the radar that this team was picked fifth to start last season. They were supposed to be totally rebuilding, and all of a sudden, they win the way that they do, winning the Phil Knight Invitational with victories over West Virginia, Gonzaga and Duke, and it’s really impressive.
Look at who Purdue has beaten in the non-conference in the last four years: Villanova, North Carolina, Duke, Gonzaga, Tennessee, Marquette and more. They have beaten titans to start the year in November. That happened last year and then this year. And because of that, expectations go through the roof and only rise when you win the Big Ten by three games, and there was a little bit of the freshman wall. There was a little bit of, ‘Hey, this is my first NCAA Tournament. This is a massive stage.’
When you come out, and you don’t shoot the ball well, and you turn the basketball over, you’re really putting yourself in the danger zone there. But they worked through that to get here. I thought Fletcher Loyer played a really good, all-around game against Tennessee. We’ve criticized his defense before, and when he was shooting the ball poorly, it was like: ‘Well, can you keep him on the floor if he’s not going to defend and he’s not making shots?’ And in March, he’s shooting around 59% from 3, but I thought he also defended against Tennessee. He made some really nice defensive plays and, on offense, he got to the rim. He didn’t make five 3s against the Volunteers. He got straight-line drives off hand-offs and on some pick-and-rolls to get to the basket. And when you’ve got [Zach] Edey as the roller, those bigs were so worried about him that you go brain-dead and forget about the ball. Those guys have done such a good job, and to think they’re only sophomores means that backcourt is in good hands.
Braden Smith will be interesting to see if he can take the Payton Pritchard approach to making the NBA. I’m not saying that’s something that will happen this season, but he’s a really good player. And Fletcher [Loyer] has had a great end of the season after going through a real serious shooting slump late in the year. For him, it’s ‘Can you get your body to transform over the summer?’ You’ve got great size at 6-4 or 6-5, but can you put on 20 pounds of muscle? It’s hard for some guys.
I watched JaJuan Johnson, and he could power clean 350 pounds and bench 300, and he would eat, and eat, and eat, and this dude wouldn’t gain a pound. And he would be skinny, but he was functionally strong. Kevin Durant is like that: he might not be able to bench 185 at the Combine, but he can move you on the court.
I think for Fletcher [Loyer], that has to be the next step, but those guys have been tremendous. Fletcher Loyer is not scared of the moment, and neither is Braden Smith. And Fletcher isn’t afraid to let you know about it either. He’ll talk some trash out there.
Who do you think will be an X-factor this weekend for Purdue that will need to play well for them to be the ones cutting down the nets on Monday night?
“I think Lance Jones is the easy answer to that question with the way he can defend and some of the streakiness that he has shooting the basketball. He’s a guy that’s not scared either. He shoots an air ball to start that Tennessee game, then he makes the biggest shot of the game. Kevin Kugler’s call on the radio talking about it being the biggest shot of his career, and you’re like, ‘Man, he’s probably right. Maybe the biggest shot of his life!’
If I’m really digging deep, I’ll go Mason Gillis. I thought from a rebounding standpoint, three assists against Tennessee, and he missed shots that he’s made all year. If you look at his splits on the season, there’s not many games where he’s been below 50% shooting the 3. But he went 0-for-3, and I just think with Edey, he’s a really good fit next to him with the way he shoots the ball. It’s not that Trey Kaufmann-Renn can’t be productive, because we saw that from him in the first two games of the tournament, but Gillis shooting it, his rebounding and his defensive plays made an impact. Lance Jones is my easy answer, but Mason Gillis is my dark horse answer.”
Of course, you’d like the Boilermakers to win it all on Monday night. But let’s talk about the matchup many want to see: What would it mean for the sport if we see Zach Edey meet Donovan Clingan on Monday night in Purdue vs. UConn? When you think about the fact we have not seen starting 7-footers in a national championship game since Hakeem Olajuwon met Patrick Ewing and Georgetown beat Houston in 1984, what comes to mind with the history we could be in for?
That’s an incredible stat. I really think it would be awesome for the game, and we’ve been able to hang on to these 7-footers for longer because of NIL. That’s been one of the benefits for sure, and the fact the NBA has shifted. I’m fascinated with the league because the pendulum is kind of swinging from Stephen Curry back to Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid. And don’t get me wrong, those big guys have perimeter skill, but they are huge people. They’re 7-footers. They shoot 3s and pull-ups, and are a different type of 7-footer. But I am interested as big men start to dominate the game now, more so than we’ve seen in past years, how does that affect the NBA?
I think even above the Clingan vs. Edey deal, it would be great for the sport because UConn and Purdue have separated themselves since December. Houston kind of made an ascent into it, and the [Jamal] Shead injury really hurt them against Duke, but it seemed like UConn and Purdue have been the two top-dogs.
In the NBA Finals, you typically get the best two teams from throughout the season. Sometimes you don’t, but in a series, you normally get the best teams. In the NCAA Tournament, with the 3-point line and foul trouble, a lot of times you get some teams who are there that you’re like, ‘Man, I would have never expected this.’ That’s what makes it so good. It’s the one-game deal with the underdogs and the way that arenas turn on favorites. There are not many things cooler than seeing that, except when it’s happening to your team.
I think it would be cool to see the two best teams all year long get to face each other with the way UConn and Purdue have played. Then, the Edey vs. Clingan storyline is certainly a big one and it would just be something. Not to discredit what NC State has done and the way they’ve played, with Kevin Keatts going from the hot seat to getting extended, and the analytics guru Nate Oats and Alabama, who will try to do it with pace, 3-point shooting and shots at the rim. We’ll see if they can do it.”
This moment for Purdue University is obviously decades in the making. For this program and this school, to be one of four standing, what can this mean for Purdue’s future?
Yes, this is such a huge opportunity. They’ve already accomplished so much, getting the monkey off their back and vanquishing the FDU loss. I’ve talked to so many people from Purdue and this is interesting: Purdue football went to the Rose Bowl in 2000 with Drew Brees and I think there were some people that thought Joe Tiller had it rolling, and they will just head to the Rose Bowl the next time it happens. Well, you’re looking now, and next time is not promised. I get that it’s not cheap. Flights and hotels are expensive, and tickets are outrageous, but I’ve talked with so many people who are like, ‘Man, I’ve got to make this work. Because who knows when we’ll be back? It could be down the road. It could be next year. Who knows?’
It’s huge for the program, and certainly that was the one thing you’d talk about when you get into debates with people that were a part of other programs and they asked: ‘What did you do in the NCAA Tournament?’ Well, we’ve lost to North Texas, Saint Peter’s and FDU in the last three years. Those are some hard truths. So, it’s massive for that.
In recruiting, when you’re saying you want to make it to Final Fours to players, it’s a lot easier to sell that when you’ve been there in the last 40 years, which we had not, sadly. We’ve been close, but we had not done that. But for Matt Painter and his staff, and you just think about the commitment you can get as a program when you can show your AD what you have done, that speaks the loudest. And [AD] Mike Bobinski has done such a good job of supporting all of the Purdue athletic programs. He’s one of the best out there, and we’re lucky to have him at Purdue.
I think for the program, and the overall health of it, this is a big deal, and if you can get over the hump and win on Monday, Purdue has never won a national title, so that would be huge.”
Finally, what’s your funniest Matt Painter story?
I remember he told me that our shootarounds would be harder than my high school practices, and he told me that after I had signed. We did a lot of 5-on-0, and we did a lot of shooting in high school. I get on Coach Paint because his shootarounds today are a lot different than what he did in his earlier years at Purdue. We went really hard with some of the full court drills. We were there for a long time, and that is much more condensed now.
My first game at ESPN calling college basketball was Purdue and Tennessee from Atlantis. It was over Thanksgiving, and I remember going to practice and the players come out listening to a boombox. I thought to myself: what is this? The players get to listen to music at shootaround? We would have never been allowed to do this!
Every former player that looks at their college coach like he’s gotten soft, you talk to someone who played for Izzo or for us with Painter, name the coach and the former players who played for him, and the former players feel that way. But it was so funny because they lost their first two games, then beat the DeAndre Ayton Arizona team, and I have not seen a boombox in practice since. That was the end of it.”
John Fanta is a national college basketball broadcaster and writer for FOX Sports. He covers the sport in a variety of capacities, from calling games on FS1 to serving as lead host on the BIG EAST Digital Network to providing commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him on Twitter @John_Fanta.
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