Miami (Ohio) may have been the biggest story entering the NCAA Tournament, but after their exciting First Four win in Dayton, the RedHawks crashed out to Tennessee in the first round on Friday. But their impact on the discussion around March Madness is still being felt thanks to comments from Purdue coach Matt Painter.
Much of the conversation around Miami’s undefeated regular season and at-large NCAA Tournament berth centered around their lack of Quad 1 wins. According to Miami coach Travis Steele, that’s because of his steadfast belief that top mid-major programs can’t get games against power conference schools to prove themselves. Matt Brown even filed an FOIA that proved Miami tried to schedule games with programs like Pitt, Wisconsin, and Marquette to no avail. After defeating Wisconsin in Round One, High Point coach Flynn Carman enthusiastically echoed those statements in wishing that mid-major schools got more opportunities.
Well, at least one high-major coach in Purdue’s Matt Painter is fighting back.
With Purdue easily advancing in the Round of 64 against Queens, Painter took it upon himself to tell Travis Steele through the reporters assembled that it’s not as simple as he paints it out to be. And at least for himself and Purdue, they are scheduling games against top mid-major schools to improve their NET rating for NCAA seeding purposes.
Matt Painter with some pointed words about Power 5 schools scheduling Mid-Majors. pic.twitter.com/75xgQJvl1a
— Boilers In The Stands (@BoilersInStands) March 21, 2026
“If he was in my position, you’re going to play 11 non-conference games. Next year it’s going to go to 12. And so we play 6 high-major games and we play 5 mid-major teams. So when they say they don’t play mid-majors, we played 5 mid-majors this year. But if he was in our position, he’d do the same thing we’re doing,” Painter said.
The Purdue coach then went on to talk about the impact of NET ratings and try to figure out how best to schedule his team’s games. He called out coaches who don’t do so as “absolute bozos” and cited his team’s games against other schools in the MAC that have proven themselves over multiple seasons.
“We’ve played Arkon. We’ve played Kent State. We’ve played Oakland. 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 that they’re not playing them. But we’ve proved ourselves. The guy at Miami of Ohio says ‘nobody will play us,’ well Akron’s been the best team in the league. Kent State’s been the best team in the league. We played them. Year before that Toledo’s been a damn good team in that league and almost won it this year in the tournament. We played them.”
Painter is right. He did play Oakland, Kent State, and Akron all this year. While Miami (Ohio) was ranked second in the MAC preseason poll, they hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2007 so they may not have been on the radar for many high-major institutions.
There might be no perfect solution that can serve both the mid-major and high-major teams given how many early season tournaments and conference games are played throughout the season. You would hope there could be a way for teams like Miami (Ohio) to get more opportunities, but it might prove difficult to make tangible progress after hearing these comments from one of the top power conference coaches.
Matt Painter then sent a warning to Travis Steele and others who are currently carrying the flag for mid-major schools that they may change their tune once they leave for greener pastures themselves.
“When you’re a mid-major guy and you say those things and now you get a high-major job, you got to be careful. You’re talking with a forked tongue there.”
About Matt Yoder