Matt Painter Fills Coaching Vacancy with Ohio State Assistant Terry Johnson

The news was first reported on Twitter by Jeff Goodman but was soon made official by the Boiler Ball account. Matt Painter has filled the second vacancy on his staff. Former Ohio State assistant coach Terry Johnson will be coming to West Lafayette as the final piece.

Looks like Goodman had a five minute head start on the official account which honestly is pretty good. The guy just gets it right all the time.

For those that don’t know much about Terry Johnson here’s a rundown of his history as both a player and a coach. Johnson was born in West Virginia, not much of a fertile recruiting ground there, but played his high school ball in Indiana at Anderson. After high school he played at Lincoln Trail Community College in Illinois before transferring to play at Lamar University, and then finally at IPFW.

After he graduated from IPFW he was immediately hired on as an assistant coach which I’ve gotta say has to be a weird situation. One day you’re playing with the guys and the next you get to tell them what to do. It’s like being the captain of the team on steroids. He then bounced around a bit to smaller schools as a young up and coming coach is wont to do. He had stints at Indiana Tech, his former team Lincoln Trail CC, and a second stint at IPFW before landing the job that would shape him. In 2007 he was hired as an assistant coach at Butler.

Yes, 2007 Butler was where Johnson truly cut his teeth in big name college hoops. You might recognize the head coach of that school as a man named Brad Stevens, I hear IU might target him with their job opening in 2025. While at Butler he was retained under three different coaches to include Brad Stevens, Brandon Miller, and his now former boss Chris Holtmann. When Holtmann went from Butler to Ohio State he brought Johnson with him. That speaks volumes to the value that Holtmann felt Johnson brought to the team.

Johnson stepped into the defensive coordinator type role at Butler which may make things interesting here because Purdue just hired Paul Lusk into this role. The thinking with this hire was that Painter would go after an offensive minded coach but this seems like a situation of you get the best coach available and you make things work. Just like every assistant coach out there they work on all aspects of the game so there’s likely nothing to worry about.

So there ya have it. Painter’s 2021-2022 staff is now complete with returning assistant Brandon Brantley joined by Paul Lusk in his second stint at Purdue and the newly hired Terry Johnson who will come over from Ohio State. This seems like a situation where both Lusk and Johnson might not be long for the Purdue sidelines. Lusk of course has had a head coaching gig before and is likely looking for another one and Johnson seems poised to get his first head coaching job in the near future. Being a pupil of names like Brad Stevens, Chris Holtmann, and now Matt Painter should open some doors for Johnson assuming that things at Purdue go well. With the talent on the roster for the next few years I have no reason to think that they won’t. This appears to be a top notch staff and a group of men who Purdue fans can be proud of. That’s one thing you can always count on with Matt Painter, the staff will comport itself with respect and will make you proud to be a Boilermaker.

Welcome to the staff Coach Johnson we look forward to watching you work.