Purdue's Matt Painter no fan of graduate transfer rule

Despite welcoming Spike Albrecht from Michigan with open arms, Purdue head coach Matt Painter remains opposed to the fifth-year graduate transfer rule.

Unlike undergraduate transfers who must sit out a year before becoming eligible to play for their new team, graduate transfers can enroll at any school in the country and become immediately eligible.

"Eighty percent of these guys are doing it for basketball reasons, if not more," Painter said to Andy Katz of ESPN. "Are they going to get a master's degree? Well, the NCAA's paying for it for one year, and we all know most master's degrees are two years."

NCAA data presented to Big Ten coaches at the conference's annual spring meetings showed that under 25 percent of graduate transfers actually complete their master's degrees. The data suggests, as Painter said, that student-athletes are using the graduate transfer rule to further their basketball careers, rather than their educations.

In Albrecht's particular case, he chose to play his fifth year at Purdue after he was squeezed out of a scholarship at Michigan by the Wolverines' incoming recruiting class.

Injuries sidelined the guard for most of last year, but he proved to be an effective player when healthy.