WEST LAFAYETTE — Purdue men’s basketball coach Matt Painter maintains a short checklist for early season multi-team events — good competition and warm weather.
The Player’s Era tournament in Las Vegas — which plans to expand to 32 teams next season — checks both of those boxes. Painter, though, said it was unlikely an expanded field next season will include the Boilermakers.
While he did not dismiss the possibility of playing in the event or something like it, he said there were too many uncertainties about the logistics.
Specifically, Painter did not get the answer he wanted on how what is setting up to be a multi-week event would infringe on the rest of the nonconference schedule.
“They called and talked to us about, if you get to that third game, you would play (in the tournament) and then you would not play in a couple of other games you had scheduled,” Painter said.
“That didn’t make sense, because this team’s going to schedule to play us and we’re just going to buy them out and not play them. Well they still need to play a game, right? And now they just don’t? They just get money? That didn’t add up to me.”
Painter also said he likes the two-game format of four-team events, such as the Baha Mar Championship. Other examples include last season’s Rady Children’s Invitational in San Diego and the Fort Myers Tip-Off.
Painter has deviated from that warm-weather preference. Purdue played at the Hall of Fame Classic in Connecticut twice, most recently playing North Carolina and Villanova in 2021. It played in the Nike-backed Phil Knight Invitational in Portland, Oregon, in 2022, facing West Virginia, Gonzaga and Duke.
Each participating team in the Players Era is guaranteed $1 million, with additional money dispersed based on advancement to the top four teams. That money goes to the players as name, image and likeness income. There are 18 teams in the field for this year’s tournament.
Some other events — especially ones requiring a larger field, such as the Maui Invitiational or the Battle 4 Atlantis — have taken a hit from the number of teams drawn to the Player’s Era. Painter said talks are already underway for Purdue’s MTE experience next season.
“I think there’s still going to be other tournaments,” Painter said. “We’re waiting to see. That doesn’t mean we won’t ever do that, but we like where we are right now.
“I wouldn’t think we’d play in Vegas next year, but the thing we’re trying to do has to go through and we’ll see where we are.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why Matt Painter doesn’t believe Purdue is a fit for Player’s Era
Reporting by Nathan Baird, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
