What Purdue Coach Matt Painter Said After 65-64 Loss to Rutgers

Purdue men's basketball head coach Matt Painter addressed the media following the team's first loss of the season to Rutgers on Monday night. Here's the complete transcript of his postgame press conference, including video.

D.J. Fezler | Jan 3, 2023

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Purdue Boilermakers

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — No. 1 Purdue basketball dropped its first game of the season on Monday night, losing to Rutgers 65-64 at Mackey Arena. The Boilermakers fell to 13-1 on the season, including a 2-1 mark in Big Ten play.

Here's the full transcript of coach Matt Painter's postgame press conference, including a complete video attached to this article:

On the defensive play of Rutgers making it difficult for Purdue to find a rhythm...

Painter: I thought our looks were pretty good. I thought the turnovers for us, it was those empty possessions when we had some perimeter shots in the first half that I just thought was us in terms of taking tough perimeter shots. We got to be able to have some discipline and probe the defense more when things aren't there and move the ball a little bit more.

But the thing that jumps out for me are the turnovers. I thought we just had some unforced errors there. And they're a tough team and they fight and they make it tough for you to throw it inside and make it tough for you to catch the ball, but it's not impossible. And we just had to show more resolve.

But at the end of the day, I just thought that Rutgers was mentally and physically tougher than we were, even if we didn't win the game there. And we put ourselves in a position to where if we can get a stop, we probably do. But I just thought Rutgers was really good.

On defending Rutgers guard Paul Mulcahy down the stretch...

Painter: Well, a couple of them were supposed to go under him and then we didn't, we stayed behind him. With Spencer, obviously, we were gonna stay tight. With him and McConnell in some of those dribble handoffs, we were gonna get under it. And then when we didn't, then they shot it.

What really got us was McConnell's misses that he got back that's five points right there. He gets an and-one on one of them and he just gets a regular putback. We get him to miss on two of them and we don't get the rebound. There at the end when he backs, they went to some pistol action. We were gonna switch it. Braden sees it, switches it and then they go on a dribble down.

We normally double with our guard on a dribble down in a mismatch. And we said absolutely, we're not going to do that because we're going to stay home on Spencer and really stay home on any perimeter. We weren't going to let them shoot a 3. And then if we're going to have help, we're going to have Zach come over. They did a flip-up to big Cliff. You know, two is two and the game is tied.

And so that's what we talked about in the huddle and we didn't do that. Now, we gave too much help on Mulcahy and then he whipped it out there, and then we left our feet when he shot faked. And obviously, the rest is history.

On Purdue's misses from the free throw line...

Painter: It's hard to say because you're in the middle of the game and it's not one person missing them, right? It's multiple people missing them and stuff, so just got to concentrate. You just got to work on it.

When you do good things and you don't get any points for it, it's frustrating. But it's not more frustrating to the person who actually misses him. You know what I mean? They're not trying to miss free throws. Those are things as a coach, you obviously work on it and you put it in time, but when it does happen — an open 3 miss, a free throw miss — guys aren't trying to miss things. It's when you don't box somebody out or you turn the ball over. Those are the things you get frustrated with.

On if Rutgers being more mentally and physically prepared came as a surprise...

Painter: A little bit. You know, we have some youth on our team. Mag is a third year, Cliff is third year, Paul is fourth year, Spencer is fifth year, Caleb McConnell is fifth year, but they have a lot of kind of that corporate DNA where they have a lot of returning guys.

I think they've had a couple of losses where I don't think they should have lost. They had some things go against them, obviously, in a couple of games and they were right there and they could have won. They're a really good team. It's a good learning lesson.

We had it happen five, six years ago when we got beat by Minnesota here and we ended up winning the Big Ten. But it was just like, Minnesota was better than us in that game. They were tougher than us, they were better than us, they made more shots. This wasn't as much of shotmaking as it was like, we've dominated the glass, we've taken care of the basketball, and now the possessions are even. You see where the game went, one possession better, right?

But we should have put ourselves in a better position by getting more of those 50/50 balls, having fewer turnovers. So now, when you have four to five more cracks at it, you would like to think that would have got us over the hump right there. But they were ready to go. Zach getting into a little bit of foul trouble there was a little bit of it. I don't think it was a lot of it because he still plays close to 30 minutes in the game.

But I just thought they were sharper than we were. And that's as much on our players as it is on me. You gotta have your guys ready. You can't jump over the fight, you gotta go out and do your job.

On the loss being a learning experience heading into the rest of Big Ten play...

Painter: Worry about the next one, it's 10 weeks. Guys look at it and you guys you follow it, but you don't live it. You can get yourself on a roller coaster if you want. You know, I'm not a big fan of roller coasters.

So you got to get back to what you do well, and we got to take better shots. We got to get some perimeter guys that are consistent shooters. Like, that would be a great start for us. But if you go and you take good shots and you miss some, I'm cool with it. Like I really am. A lot of people that pick at you as a coach, they don't know shit when it comes to that. You got guys that can shoot, you gotta believe in them. I believe in our guys.

There's not anybody out there shooting 3s that I don't believe in. They've proven that they can make them, but we're not right now. But who are you? Like I thought our Davidson game was a fabulous win, 3-for-25 from 3. But when the ball was loose, it was ours. Our name was on all those rebounds. Our name was on all those loose balls.

And tonight I would say they were a little bit better than us. The possession war was even, but I thought they got there quicker to some balls tonight than we were, and we just can't let that happen.

On Purdue's freshman guards playing against Rutgers' style of defense...

Painter: It's part of it. Like, you want to play in the NBA? You're 21 years old, there are 30-year-olds. It's just the way it is, like who cares? Go out there, don't make hook passes out of bounds.

Throw the basketball, be fundamentally sound, put the ball in the money. Pass the basketball to your teammates, our first two or three 3s, one guy caught the ball above his head. Another guy caught it down like he was tagging somebody out at second. Like, put the ball in the money man. Make good passes.

Guys that can shoot, if you give them good passes, you're just going to raise their percentages. And so our concentration level just wasn't there. Some of the turnovers is one thing, but the other ones are now we get empty possessions because we get tougher shots because we're not making clean passes.

To me, that's concentration when you're dealing with people that can do the job. We have a lot of guys that can do that. So we just got to be better at it.

On what Purdue needs to learn as a team from the loss...

Painter: You want them to be physically and mentally tougher than they were. I know that's a big picture, whole type of a statement. But that's what you want. And then just to clean up the sloppiness. Be better in your execution and running stuff. Be better in the details of how we're defending things.

One thing as a player that's an unbelievable lesson, put the onus on a coach. Always put the onus back on the coach, and I know that sounds kind of juvenile, but it's true. Like just do what he says, and then everything's good and proper, because now when you break that — See, the one thing, when you don't do what you're supposed to do, there's other ways to do things, right? But we're all expecting you to do it that way. And when you don't, you disconnect us. And so when when you do your job and you do what you're supposed to, you figure that out as a basketball player. You get that figured out. It takes a little bit of time.

When you sit, that normally figures things out real quick. That's normally the best motivator, is just kind of sit and watch for a little bit and then be able to do that. We're close there, but we're not there. We got to keep working on those details, and that's something we've known as a staff.

Obviously, when you win games, everything's great, right? And you get ranked high. But you still are making mistakes and you're still having breakdowns. You guys just don't talk about it as much. And so for us as coaches, we always talk about it because we know what's coming.

Like we've known what's coming with Rutgers. What Rutgers did tonight didn't shock the coaching staff. And we sold it and sold it and sold it like hey, man, these guys are coming. If we were going to war, we'd stopped by New Jersey and pick them up.

Them cats, they played for keeps, and we explain that to them. Right now we gotta learn to play for keeps. You get in that pickup game and if you lose, you gotta wait an hour before you can get back on there. We don't want to wait. We want to keep hooping and keep playing. We gotta get grimy. We're not very grimy right now.

On the play of Brandon Newman and Braden Smith in the backcourt...

Painter: I thought Newman did some good things for us. I thought he had a couple questionable ones early. But I thought he did some good things, he had a couple breakdowns there defensively. When Mulcahy was going, we had him on Mulcahy. We were going a little offense-defense. So you get stuck when there's no dead ball. And sometimes you just let it ride because you want to keep that on offense or vice versa, right? And so like you get with that.

I thought it was Braden's worst game. Braden didn't have a good game. It's one of those things that you don't want to be too harsh with a young guy. But what he has in front of him, he's earned, right? He's earned it. He plays 30 minutes, he has the ball in his hands. He's a really good player, but we need more from him from a competitive standpoint.

I thought tonight was the first time that you know, competitively just jump into that fight and roll. He wasn't quite there, but it's kind of part of it. It's kind of part of the learning curve. You gotta learn from it. But I don't think anybody was an exceptional from a defensive standpoint.

On blocking outside noise as a player and as a team...

Painter: There's always going to be noise if you want to listen. I think that's the key. Like who's listening? I have a choice to listen or not listen, right? You guys can say whatever you want, other people can say that. I don't care what you think. People will say things and they'll be like, well, if you guys do this, or you should play this guy, whatever. If you listen to those people, you'll be sitting with those people. I promise you that.

You have to please what's best for Purdue. And that stinks sometimes because I want that individual player to play more and do better. Like that stinks. I hate that as a head coach. I loved being an assistant coach, because I never felt that burden. I hate that burden. But I'm not going to go away from that. I'm still going to do what's best for Purdue.

Our society and how everything is with information stinks for them, not for me. Like this is my job, this is what I do. So when someone ridicules you or says something, a lot of times it's right. It just is, it's like hey man, your team wasn't very tough tonight. That's my fault. But when they're 19, 20, 21 it affects them. It affects them, and you really got to coach them so hopefully that it doesn't affect them at least as much.

But once they start to learn it doesn't matter. It's like your own family. It matters what your family members say. Doesn't matter what other people say about your family. Same thing with the basketball program. Doesn't matter what other people say, but being the number one team in the country, now when you haven't been through things like that or we have been through that for the people that have returned, it's really not that big a deal. Like no matter what you do, someone's gonna say something. Just keep your way about it, have good headspace and go out and have fun.

You've got to force yourself sometimes to block it and just have fun. Then there's other guys who don't pay attention to anything, including me. They definitely shouldn't be struggling. Because to them it's just like they go out kind of happy-go-lucky. But it's different for young guys now. Like it's kind of microwave. If you're a top 20 player and all of a sudden you stay in college for two or three years, it's like what's wrong with him? Nothing's wrong with him, it's hard.

It's hard to be in good. And it's not a talent game, it's a production game. So you just gotta get with each guy and how they are and how they deal with things. But you just don't know what they're kind of going through, but so much comes to them with the information flow.