What Matt Painter Said Following Purdue's Victory Against Maryland

Purdue coach Matt Painter spoke to the media after the team's 58-55 win against Maryland on Sunday at Mackey Arena. Here's the complete transcript and full video from the postgame press conference.

D.J. Fezler | Jan 22, 2023

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Purdue Boilermakers

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue head coach Matt Painter addressed the media following a 58-55 victory over Maryland on Sunday at Mackey Arena.

Here's everything he had to say, with the complete transcript and full video of his postgame interview attached to this article.

On the importance of learning from a close game while also coming out with a win

Painter: Yeah, it's a fine line. They're one possession better or we're one possession worse, we're losing that game. And give Maryland credit. I thought they were really good in the second half. I think we helped them.

You're struggling to pass and catch and make simple passes. For us, it kind of put us in a hole. And then it just seemed like we were playing tired. They got the energy all of a sudden we didn't. But more than anything, just taking care of the basketball and giving ourselves a chance to score, giving ourselves a chance to offensive rebound.

And then they get four or five run-outs. It seemed like they were just constantly getting in transition, and we had to get them to play in the half court and try to get him to earn it. Which they can, they have very good players.

Each game, especially with a team — we have some younger guys that get heavy minutes. You're always learning. You'd like to learn through wins, right? So we're very fortunate we won this, but we have a lot to watch and to get better. Like I said earlier, this could have went either way.

On Ethan Morton's role as a defender against Maryland

Painter: His ability to guard different people really helped us. You see how Maryland goes and you see Jahmir Young, he's just had a fabulous year. And we're fortunate he missed that dunk too.

He was getting to the rim, we had about two or three blown assignments that wasn't on Ethan in what we were doing in some of their ball screen Spain action. He just causes problems with his size and his ability to move his feet. So when he gets quickness on him, when he first got here, that was hard for him. And now he's better.

It's not like he can keep everybody in front of him, but he just has good size and he makes it hard. Just gives you that guy that you can shut down — that he can guard a four, he can guard a point, he can guard a two or a three, so it just depends. Now we have him picking up the basketball and some point guards. It just depends on matchups for the team, but he just does a lot of little things to help us win.

On Purdue's sluggishness in the second half

Painter: It's the passing and catching. I know that's elementary and it's fundamental, but it's what it comes down to. We had to make better passes out of the post. We drove the ball a couple of times into crowded areas, you always have to attack into space so you have room to play.

We've been really good at the first five minutes of the second half this season, across the board. We haven't been perfect, but we've been pretty good and pretty consistent there. But we just weren't. You start the second half, you miss a layup. You take an out-of-rhythm three, you miss another layup, you turn the basketball over, and now they're scoring, that's how runs go against you.

You want that flipped. You want to make that layup, take a rhythm three, don't turn the ball over, and now they stay out of transition that way because you're making better decisions. And even if you're missing shots, if you're missing quality shots, you're still normally going to set your defense.

So it was just a combination of that. Tough shots or missed shots, turnovers, and now them running out. And then they started making some shots. Obviously, they're a quality team Jahmir Young started to keep going. Julian Reese was good the whole game. I thought he was fabulous. He gave them that staple that when things got tough, give him the basketball. He can get them a bucket.

On playing against a zone defense

Painter: Just passing and catching, like I said earlier. You know, just make good passes. Be ready to shoot the basketball. They take things away, you get the ball in and they clamp. Pass the basketball out and just keep making the simple play. You know when people double and triple team, it's a simple game.

And for [Zach Edey], he can take on two or three people and pass over them. He's proven that. Tonight, he just had a couple of reads that he just kind of miscalculated. And that's all it really comes down to. If you're handing them points while you're struggling offensively, just execute and take what they give you.

On using David Jenkins Jr. on the defensive end of the floor

Painter: Just someone to stay with [Don] Carey. You know, those guys had gotten away from Braden, had gotten away from Fletcher a couple times and just trying to get those guys to stay with them in their action.

And we went over multiple times, And those guys were giving too much space and so we just put David in there just to stay with Carey. And even though he didn't have a great game, he's got the ability to get loose, just like [Hakim] Hart, just like [Donta] Scott. All those guys have the ability to get loose and make one, so we wanted to guard the arc and not let them get through.

It just seemed like we were up three for 10 minutes. You don't want to really look at it that way with three, four minutes because there's so much time to play. But you also, when you have a substantial lead, you don't want the psychological warfare of somebody taking the lead, right? Or even tying the game.

You want to keep that lead, in which we were able to do. And I think that really helped. David makes a big three when he goes in, he was solid for us, and then he did get a good job defensively there at the end.

On Defending the 3-point line

Painter: Just trying to stay with them. Contest high, not foul 3-point shooters. About three weeks ago we were like in a rut where we just kept fouling 3-point shooters. I just wanted to stay with them. We had all the respect in the world for you know Hakim Hart and Dante Scott and the guys that have been there a while.

So we know even though they might not have had a great first half, but they can get it cooking. That's what we talked about at halftime, let's stay with them. Let's make it hard. Keep Jahmir Young bottled up, which we didn't do a very good job at times in the second half. Did a better job in the first half.

See, when you can keep him bottled up and he's penetrating, and now you can stop those lobs, or those dump downs and then stay with the shooters, now you're making those tough twos. That's what we wanted, even when they made some of those tough twos, don't get worried about that.

Get worried about those run-out dunks they're getting. The run-out layups, getting to the free-throw line, things of that nature. Those are the things that you have to not, but if people aren't going to make threes on you, it's going to be pretty tough.

Now, with that being said, they did a pretty good job guarding us too. We're 2-for-13 from three. So if we could've done a little bit better job there, that's where in games you can get some separation from the arc.

On Purdue's half-court defense

Painter: I thought that starting the game, we were really active. I thought we had great activity on the defensive end just with our hands and making it hard, not letting them get in those sweet spots in the post. They were good. Our guys were really good. They were flying around, they were contesting high.

But when you play a team like Maryland, you know they're going to make that run at you. We just weren't as sharp in the second half. You're fortunate to win, right? But it gives you something now going into your next game, like hey, we've got to clean this up.

We proved in the first half that we could do a lot of things from a details standpoint, but in the second half, we had slippage. I think when you play three games in a week, now you have to fight that and not have that mental fatigue. And you can kind of see we were dragging a little bit.

But that's not an excuse. It's just a basketball game. You know, just play hard. We're not playing all day. Let's go play for two hours. We just have to play hard for two hours, it's not an all-day deal. But we practiced for an hour on Friday. We did our shoot around yesterday, so we didn't have a shoot around today. So we played two, three days ago, but it's not like we've been having a grueling practice the next few days. That's more mental than physical.

On the value of drawing fouls in the win

Painter: We double up their free throws, but they fouled intentionally at least twice, right? So there's four right there. Especially with Zach. Zach drew seven fouls. Obviously, we've had a big free-throw disparity, I think we're number one in the country in that area. So he's hard to guard.

For every time they call something, those seven fouls, I guarantee I can go grab seven from film that didn't get called. So like, when they start the bridging, just you can't be on the floor three or four times during that. You think he wants to be on the floor? You think you're 290 pounds and you're just going to drop to the floor? But they will call it and they started to call and they stopped. So I got to watch film.

It gets frustrating, it's really frustrating for Zach with that. He's like a piñata out there. You guys been to a party lately where there's a piñata? They really hit them. They hit them really hard and candy comes out. I don't think there's any candy inside Zach. But it gets old, it really does. Like as a coach, you don't want to complain. Play the game and move on. But I feel for him. I'm somebody that, it's going to have to get extreme before I get upset about stuff. And it's just like, I think we're past that.

They got to be able — they did a great job and then they just get away from it. You got to protect the shooter. You can't hit a guy when he shoots a three, right? Well, when he shoots a jump hook, you can't hit him either. And so it's just like, you're just not getting calls because you're 7'4", 290. I just don't understand it. They just have to be consistent and call the same thing throughout the game.

But we spend more time trying to calm him down than anything, because you don't want him to retaliate and then foul, and now he's in foul trouble. It's an ongoing process trying to get things for him to make sense of it. Because to him, when he gets fouled, they don't have to call it. But you look at it and say well he got fouled seven times. Oh look, fouls drawn. But like did he really only get out seven times?

You know you're a good player when you have an average game and you get 24 and 16. Because he was just OK today. He was just OK. So we got to get it to where we're playing through that. If they're not going to call it, we just have to be able to play through it better.