I think the main reason Beilein took the job is to get away from recruiting (and all the illegal stuff associated with it for top 50 players), the way that the NBA draft process works now (especially with Poole, Matthews, and Brazdeikis all being projected 2nd rounders at best), and other problems with college basketball.
Yeah, I was talking about that with guys from the Purdue H&R blog... Roster construction is difficult with all of these early exits.
Purdue is in big on Hunter Dickinson, a 7'2" center, in the 2020 class. I think he's currently rated 26th in the country, which means that he's the sort that's unlikely to spend more than 2 years in the NCAA, if he doesn't leave after one.
Which is hard because all expectations is that in 2020 we'll still have 7'3" Matt Haarms as a senior, 6'9" Tre Williams as a junior, and 6'10" Emmanuel Dowuona as a reshirt sophomore. Dickinson very well might be better than any one of those three, but is he going to want to come in and battle all 3 of them, all experienced players, for PT?
So let's say that he chooses somewhere that he thinks he'll get more PT. And then Matt Haarms spends all year showing the world that he's developed a 3pt jumper and playing a stretch 4, while Tre Williams (whose freshman advanced stats were mostly better than Caleb Swanigan's) proves that he's a consistent double-double machine. And they both go into the draft.
Which leaves a coach like Painter--who would have had a GREAT opportunity to offer Dickinson--scrambling to find a center to back up EDow because there's nobody else on the roster and most of the best recruits have already signed LOIs.
This has been a much more consistent issue for Beilein than Painter, because he's consistently gotten better recruits who have more legitimate early entrant possibilities. It might be one thing if you're a Sean Miller or a Will Wade who just opens the pocketbook to get the next group in. But if you're the type of coach who does it the right way and actually wants to mold young men into adults, it's gotta be frustrating.