Just a week after the Missouri Tigers were left at the altar by head coach Mike Anderson, the Tigers appear to have broken up a marriage themselves, with Purdue coach Matt Painter ready to join Mizzou, according to reports from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Painter, whose first head coaching job came at Southern Illinois, has been at Purdue since 2004, replacing longtime head coach Gene Keady. Since then he’s taken them to the Sweet 16 twice, with a career record of 130-61 and 59-37 in conference.
In 2011, you’ll remember, they ran into the VCU Rams Upset Machine in the round of 32.
According to Bernie Miklasz, the Tigers and the Boilermakers have "offered essentially the same salary" for the positions, which means that Painter will have to choose based entirely on the relative merits of the jobs. Miklasz suggests that the money and the facilities are in place for the University of Missouri to run a first-rate basketball department, which only depresses me more about the state of my alma mater’s English department facilities…