What Davidson Coach Matt McKillop Said After Indy Classic Loss to Purdue
INDIANAPOLIS — No. 1 Purdue basketball remained undefeated and picked up its 11th win of the season with a 69-61 win against Davidson on Saturday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in the inaugural Indy Classic.
Here's the full transcript as well as a video of coach Matt McKillop's postgame press conference where he discusses his team's loss to the Boilermakers:
Opening Statement
McKillop: Obviously a very, very hard-fought battle. I have the most respect in the world for Matt Painter. I think this is the third time that we've played him, first obviously for me as a head coach but twice since I've been on the staff. Somehow he manages to every single year put different guys in his system and get them to play at an incredibly high level.
I think nobody in the country is playing at the level of Zach Edey right now. And what's interesting is that at halftime, we felt that we had defended very, very well and I think at halftime he had 17 and 11. We thought we did a great job against him, and we really did.
Very proud of the fight of our group. We got down early, we fought right back in there and we were in it until the final minutes. You talk about battle, you look at Sam [Mennenga's] lip, you look at Foster [Loyer's] face, this is what we anticipated. We thought this was going to be a prize fight against a heavyweight. Proud of our group for fighting, proud of them for hanging in there and staying in the center of the ring. Unfortunately, things just didn't go our way in those last four minutes.
On Caleb Furst impacting the game in the second half as a complement to Zach Edey on offense...
McKillop: Both our guys said it, and I alluded to it earlier. They brought an incredible offense and ways to get post-ups from a high-low action, a down screen, a ball screen. There are so many different ways that you have to be ready and prepared and alert to them looking for [Edey]. We kind of reaffirmed some of the game plan, a few simple adjustments, but I think the biggest thing for them offensively to start that second half was the way Caleb Furst hit the glass.
You mentioned how many points he had, I think you said 10, I'm curious as to how many of those 10 came from offensive rebounds or him being aggressive as an offensive rebounder, which led to them getting second-chance opportunities.
Former Mr. Basketball, he's really, really good. You almost watch Zach Edey play and you forget that they have unbelievably talented players at every single position. I think the way he attacked the offensive glass was what really put us on our heels to start the second half. We did such a good job trying to contain Edey on the glass, but now all of a sudden we have to worry about a 6-foot-10 athlete running to the rim too.
On being willing to let Purdue hit 3-point shots to give extra attention toward Zach Edey in the post...
McKillop: You know, as you're saying this, I'm feeling that we weren't really hurt from 3 and sure enough, they were 3-for-25. And it wasn't because we were making them take tough shots, at times we were, but we kind of looked at the different ways teams have guarded him and we saw how Hofstra doubled him right from the passer, we say how Florida State doubled him from the top side and we saw how Nebraska was effective at going from the bottom side.
We don't quite the size as Florida State, we don't have quite the athleticism as Hofstra. We felt like from a personnel standpoint, what Nebraska did was something that we could emulate, and that's kind of coming at him from his bottom side so when we're connected to him on his catch — which was the game plan and the hope that we could execute — we were already in a post double position.
And I know Coach Painter said something about this in a press conference earlier in the year, then they're playing four against three. Four against three worked in our favor enough times for them to miss 22 3s. 3-point attempts often lead to longer rebounds and sometimes we didn't corral those, I mean, they had 17 offensive rebounds.
You're going to have to live with something when you have a guy like Zach Edey on the court. You're either going to have to live with him getting shots in the paint, or you're going to have to double-team him and live with them taking perimeter shots.
I think our guys were really active, they flew all over the place. Maybe they took some rhythm out of some passes, so the passes weren't as crisp to the open shooters. But we did our best, and I thought we guarded that guy pretty darn well and he had 29 points and 16 rebounds.
Related Stories on Purdue Basketball
- Free Throws Fuel Purdue's 69-61 Win Over Davidson: Purdue moved to 11-0 on the season by knocking down 28 free throws in a victory against Davidson as part of the 2022 Indy Classic at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Junior center Zach Edey scored 29 points while pulling in 16 rebounds. CLICK HERE
- Purdue, Davidson Live Blog: Purdue basketball tipped off against Davidson and earned a 69-61 victory. Relive some of the action from our live blog, which came straight from press row. CLICK HERE
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D.J. Fezler is a staff writer for BoilermakersCountry.com. Hailing from The Region, he is from Cedar Lake in Northwest Indiana and has spent the last two years covering Purdue football and basketball.