DETROIT — As Matt Painter prepares top seed Purdue to face Gonzaga on Friday in the Sweet 16, he knows the NCAA tournament could undergo significant changes in the years ahead amid continued expansion talk.
He wants the 68-team field to remain as is, but he also said active coaches have been sidelined in the conversations around that and other pressing issues for the sport.
The current NCAA Division I Council, which will make the final decision on expansion, comprises Division I athletic directors, commissioners and faculty members from various schools. It does not include current coaches.
With NIL, the transfer portal and possible expansion continuing to impact the sport, Painter said it’s a mistake to ignore the input of current head coaches.
“I’d rather see the room change,” Painter said Thursday. “I’d rather see that. If you look [at] committees — whether it’s the executive committee, the Division I Council, the Rice Commission — there are no current head coaches sitting in those rooms. It doesn’t mean we have to stir the drink or make the decision, but just listen to it from our vantage point.”
Gonzaga’s Mark Few said coaches are sometimes blindsided by the decisions and changes and then are expected to adjust to them, which isn’t fair.
“The one thing I would say is they need to start listening to us coaches, especially those of us coaches who have been around a long time and have tried to do it the right way,” Few said. “Get us out of this bureaucratic stranglehold where nothing gets done and the stuff just crushes us when it hits, all these changes. And we could all see it coming.
“Hopefully, we can get to the point where football coaches and basketball coaches are on the decision-making [committees] that can help guide us through this thing because this [NCAA tournament] is so awesome and so special and so great. We’ve got to make sure we keep this thing rolling.”
The transfer portal, which opened last week, has been a sticking point for many college basketball coaches who’ve been tasked with mining it for new players and preparing their teams to play in the postseason.
Painter, Few and other coaches hope their voices will be heard on that issue and other monumental developments in men’s basketball.
“I’m all about the student-athlete and them having choices,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said. “They deserve those choices. Could we do [the transfer portal window] at a different time? I wish we could. I would like the stories from Selection Sunday until Championship Monday to be about the teams in the NCAA tournament. Not about who’s leaving and who’s joining this program.
“It’s just unfortunate that that’s such a big part of what’s going on in the daily news, and I think it takes away from celebrating the teams that have had incredible years and have made it to this point.”
