What Matt Painter Said After Purdue's Win Over McNeese in the NCAA Tournament
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Purdue is returning to the Sweet 16. On Saturday, the Boilermakers punched their ticket to the next round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, posting an impressive 76-62 victory over McNeese.
The Boilermakers were led by Trey Kaufman-Renn, who scored 22 points and collected 15 rebounds. Fletcher Loyer added 15 points, CJ Cox scored 11 and Braden Smith chipped in 10 points. With the victory, Purdue is headed to Indianapolis to play in the Sweet 16 at Lucas Oil Stadium on Friday, March 28.
After the game, coach Matt Painter spoke with reporters about the win. Here's everything he had to say.
Matt Painter's opening statement ...
Painter: I really like the fact that we did a great job in these two games rebounding the basketball. It's really put us in a great position from a possession standpoint. We outrebounded by ten in the first half and seven in the second. We had some careless turnovers and keeping the game close, but I thought our execution was really good. It's a hard -- I wouldn't say it's an adjustment, but it's a hard thing to do is play them in the second game when they switch everything because people will switch a lot, but they normally don't switch with your center so when they switch everything, you've got to be able to manipulate the defense, but you have to also make good decisions when you're passing and catching.
I thought PJ Thompson, our assistant in charge of our offense, did a really good job of getting us ready to play. That's where it starts for us. We can't go further without playing great offensively. We have to execute well, we have to shoot the ball well. That's not really pressure, that's just a fact. But the part of getting rebounds and getting more possessions there, we got to clean up our turnovers and keep rebounding because both teams that are going to play in the next game that we'll face in Indy both are very, very good teams across the board, but also elite at rebounding the basketball.
On how much Purdue emphasizes the fundamentals during the offseason ...
Painter: Yeah, they do a great job, when they get into a rotation or they get behind a little bit, they don't play the ball and the man, they play the pass and that's different, but they got another guy coming. You got to work that through a lot of drill work in your rotations.
There's no doubt that they have a lot of drill work there where they're very good, and so sometimes it's like when Trey gets into those short roles, we talk about catching the ball and pausing, wait and see because some people you know how they will help. These guys will help with anybody but they swarm the basketball and do such a good job in those situations where when you're in a rotation and you have four out. I call it a pinball — one more pass, you pinball and they go and they bracket and play in that passing lane.
If you will pump fake and pause but catch it on the arc, you can make a post feeder and stick that three but they get you playing at a speed that you're just not accustomed to and I thought our guys did a great job most of the game. We got careless at the end. But you're not going to be a great rebounding team in rotations. Nobody is. That's when they're at their best. When they rebound well in their rotations, that's when they're tough to deal with but that's where we thought we could get them.
We shot well in spurts today. We made enough, right? But we also had a lot of good looks and I thought our execution was good. I know Braden had some turnovers but he still gets the ball to where it needs to be and understands what we're doing in switching.
On what Painter wrote on his whiteboard before the game ...
Painter: PJ handles our offense. It doesn't mean I don't interject but I write the same thing on the board every game. There's those pillars, those constants that don't change, run, rebound, defend, stick to our rules, things of that nature. They're general and hokey but they're true. People who get caught up sometimes, we can overload them.
You have to give a lot of information to go against that kind of a defense. You have to understand what you're doing. I think the fails we have in the teams in the nonconference that switch a lot and play that way really helped us to adjust and be able to play.
On the contributions from Trey Kaufman-Renn Saturday and throughout the season ...
Painter: Yeah, I felt he was going to be an all-conference player. We watched him and he was around. At times he didn't coexist with Zach the best. We would play (Mason) there because he would stretch the floor. We wanted to give Zach that kind of space to play from a decision-making standpoint.
I know he started last year at the four, but he waited. He waited his turn and he was very honest about it when we had our end-of-season meeting the year before and said I can wait one year but I can't wait two years. So Zach only stayed one more year, but he's fabulous. He's very unique, he's stronger than he looks. He's a good passer. Tonight was probably his best rebounding game of the season. He hasn't rebounded like that. That really would be a separator from him in terms of a national player.
On Purdue's ability to keep and develop players, especially big men ...
Painter: Obviously signing good players. Brandon Brantley is one of our assistants that works with our big guys and he's done a really good job with that.
Trey is a very simple person. He's to the point. Academics, basketball, that's about it. He puts a lot of time into his game and just finding those guys with that passion and competitive spirit that want to get better. Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer, you can go down the list. You have to give them the credit more than us but you have to give us the credit for finding that out about them that it matters to them and they care because players are made in the offseason.
Those guys had great offseasons and they love Zach Edey. All of us do. He makes you a great coach, right? It's hard to adjust without him because he meant so much to us and how we played and what we had to change. We played through ball screens. But what Trey does and how we get to the pocket passes and the short rolls, we never did that before because we had the real big guys. AJ Hammons, Isaac Haas, Caleb Swanigan, JaJuan Johnson. That was our adjustment, our adjustment was that but it makes it work because Braden can pass the basketball so well. He's always been a guy that's been able to score. He did a good job scoring against Zach in practice. That's always a good indicator it's going to work against everybody else.
On withstanding the run that McNeese to put together to slice into the lead in the second half ...
Painter: Yeah, we had adversity in the High Point game too. You don't want to have it. You want to push the game out and win decisively, but just trying to get them to keep their composure. We made a couple of mental mistakes there, we passed across our body, didn't pass fake before we went, that said, they're active and tough to go against.
Any time you can put yourself in that position, it's kind of the human behavior, like if you haven't been part of it, it probably drives you nuts but it doesn't drive you as nuts if you're standing on that sideline. Do everything that you just did to put yourself in that position. Don't get away from it but it does happen. It was good to see that composure from our guys just to hang in there and be able to finish the game.
On the mentality in the locker room after returning to the Sweet 16 ...
Painter: We have a lot of guys that work hard and put a lot of time into it. It's more trying to set our offensive identity and work towards that. Our guys put in a lot of time working out in the summer but when we get our time as a group, we practice. I think it's so important in June, July, August, when you get your time because we start school around August 20th, 21st. The first day of school we practice.
We take those four hours and try to put it towards how to grow into it. When Daniel Jacobsen got hurt, we felt with Daniel that we would have played two ways offensively. When he was out of the game and Trey was more at the center, Will Berg was playing at that time so we were trying to figure out all the different ways.
Sometimes you have too much, right? So that's really the time that we put in to doing it and becoming just a really sound defensive team. We knew we weren't going to be great in terms of keeping the ball in front of us all the time. You see how they play. They were isoing us and taking us and we're loading up against them. So just trying to create that identity on both ends of the court and then having that foundation. A lot of people don't realize that if you're just talking about it and working out in the summer, your foundation now starts when practice starts. We want it to start in June so now we can grow and then be at our best at this time of the year.
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WADE GETS TECHNICAL: Upset with how calls were falling in the second half, McNeese coach Will Wade and player Christian Shumate were hit with technical fouls vs. Purdue. CLICK HERE
