Purdue's Matt Painter regrets not talking about an NCAA title last year. This season, it's different

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Most college basketball coaches choose to focus only on the present, whether that's the next practice or game. If you ask them in October about playing for a national championship come April, they will steer the conversation right back to the here and now.

Matt Painter believes one of his mistakes last year was not talking about playing for the title enough.

One year after he led Purdue to the verge of its first NCAA championship, the Boilermakers had a good-but-not great season, one that ended with a heartbreaking 62-60 loss to Houston in the Sweet 16. In retrospect, Painter thought that he should have made a return to the title game a focus in December, rather than wait until his team had made big strides in March.

“We should have talked it into existence,” Painter said. “We should have talked about it more.”

There is no escaping the championship talk this season. The Boilermakers begin the season as the No. 1 team in the AP Top 25, led by the trio of Trey Kaufman-Renn, Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer. They were a big part of the team that lost to UConn in the title game two years, and will welcome high-profile South Dakota State transfer Oscar Cluff this season.

“The one thing that's cool about it,” Painter reflected, “is that our seniors — our three main guys — they've accomplished everything except winning a national championship.”

The road to the Final Four in Indianapolis, about an hour's drive from the Purdue campus in West Lafayette, won't be an easy one. Thanks to the continued growth of the transfer portal, ever-increasing emphasis on name, image and likeness compensation, and a crop of freshman that could be downright historic, there are perhaps more championship contenders than ever before.

Two that figure to be in the hunt are awfully familiar to the Boilermakers: Houston is the preseason No. 2 after losing to Florida in last year's championship game, and UConn is preseason No. 4 . The third-ranked Gators will be trying to repeat as champions, just as Florida did in 2006 and '07.

“You don’t get to sit on your couch for a week and watch highlights and enjoy it,” said Florida coach Todd Golden. “We wanted to make sure we put ourselves in position to compete at a high level again this year. We worked really hard to do that.”

It was a big task: Walter Clayton Jr., Will Richard and Alijah Martin are gone from that title team. But Florida did bring back Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh, and then landed ex-Arkansas guard Boogie Fland, one of the top players in the portal.

“At the end of the day,” Golden said, “you turn around and then it’s summer workouts. You have your team on campus for the first time, you’re trying to make sure you turn the page on that success and get everybody ready for the next year.”

Next year is suddenly here. The season opens next week.

Most of the nation's top teams have played in some high-profile exhibition games, which are allowed under relaxed NCAA rules this year. Purdue and Kentucky played this past weekend, for example, while Houston took on Mississippi State and UConn has a date with Michigan State. That means teams should hit the ground running when games begin for real Nov. 3.

Gonzaga, the dominant program in the West Coast Conference for years, will be on a farewell tour of sorts this season. The Bulldogs are heading to the Pac-12 next year, when Washington State and Oregon State will be joined by Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Utah State and Texas State in a new-look league.

“For me as a competitor, I'm sad to see them go,” San Francisco coach Chris Gerlufsen said of the Bulldogs.

While much of the focus each season rests on the veterans in the transfer portal, this year's crop of freshmen features a dozen players — maybe more — who could be one-and-done draft picks by the time summer rolls around.

Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, Duke forward Cameron Boozer and BYU wing AJ Dybantsa are the headliners, but Tennessee forward Nate Ament, Baylor's Tounde Yessoufou, Houston big man Chris Cenac Jr., Louisville guard Mikel Brown and North Carolina forward Caleb Wilson all have the potential to be top-10 draft picks.

Purdue guard Braden Smith headlined the preseason AP All-America team after earning first-team honors last season, when he averaged 16.1 points, 4.6 rebounds and 8.7 assists. Dybantsa and Condon also made the five-man preseason team along with Big 12 player of the year JT Toppin of Texas Tech and Yaxel Lendeborg, who transferred from UAB to Michigan.

There has been a recent groundswell of support across college basketball for expanding March Madness, perhaps going to 72 or 76 teams as soon as the 2027 tournament. That means the upcoming NCAA Tournament could be the last with 68, the number since it last expanded from 64 for the 2011 edition.

"One of the reasons I’m interested in expanding the tournament, although it comes with a lot of logistical complications and everything else, is I do think there are teams that didn’t make the tournament that should have,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said at a recent roundtable forum. “And it bummed me out that they didn’t get in.”

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