In all fairness, though, coaches are judged on their body of work and Painter has a whole lot of games under his belt. His results are mediocre, and so maybe these comments about "settling" when talking about a guy who has coached 12 years in the league versus 2 games, has a little more substance?
Just a few stats: At Purdue alone, Painter has averaged 22 wins per season, made the NCAAs 9/12 times (75%), won the conference twice, and been in the top 4 of the conference 8/12 times (67%). He hasn't made it past the sweet 16, but if you take off your "hate of all things Purdue glasses" I don't think anyone can objectively say those kinds of results are mediocre. To put it in perspective, here are Izzo's stats, a coach that most anyone in college basketball would say is far and away a better coach: 24 wins per season, made the NCAAs 20/22 times (90%), won the conference 4 times, and been in the top 4 of the conference 16/22 (72%) times. Not a huge stat difference, but Izzo has a lot more tourney success making deep runs.