What Purdue Coach Matt Painter Said After Overtime Victory Against Nebraska
LINCOLN, Neb. — No. 4 Purdue basketball stayed undefeated with a 65-62 overtime win on the road against Nebraska on Saturday. The Boilermakers improved to 10-0 and 2-0 in Big Ten play.
Here's the full transcript of coach Matt Painter's postgame press conference:
On Purdue's ability to rally and eventually win in overtime...
Painter: Well it was good. Braden Smith made his free throws down the stretch. I know Fletcher [Loyer] really made some nice plays. I thought we had a call go against us in regulation when we were just trying to get open. And then I think they had a call go against them there when we're dribbling the ball up the court.
So it was like one of those crucial plays, and then in that moment that really helped us, being able to get those two free throws that time. We're trying to foul there at half, and we don't get the foul. And so we're very, very fortunate because they had the long possession — I don't know chronologically when it was — where they had like five offensive rebounds and they don't get anything.
They get four or five offensive rebounds in a possession, and I don't think they scored out of it. Maybe Derrick [Walker] ended up getting a layup out of it. But it was just like you gotta get those rebounds — they didn't score.
It's just one of those games where you have it at a good point, and they have a scheme and what they're going to do. I thought they did a really good with it, and I thought we did a really good job with it. We just didn't make open shots. And the guys that we had shooting the basketball are guys that can make more than they did, but that's life on the road.
That's part of it, can you find a way to win a game when you don't shoot the ball well? And we were able to do that. But Nebraska deserved to win the game just as much as we did. I thought they were really good.
On how Nebraska defended against Zach Edey...
Painter: They just stayed in there and he's passing. Even though he had five turnovers, he's 300 pounds and played 42.5 minutes. He had 17 rebounds and seven blocks. Their face box out, which is totally illegal, and so I commend them. I'd keep face boxing out too if they're not going to call it. Because what are they supposed to do?
I thought they were really good and did some things against him, but I also thought he handled himself. I think he had one time that I think he took a shot — what was he from the field? 5-of-7 — he took one shot and someone was wide open. But after a while, you pass it out every single time and they don't make them, you are going to force a couple.
He's come a long way. He's a good player.
On Fletcher Loyer's performance...
Painter: Well Fletcher wanted the ball. You get in that and the crowd is going and Nebraska's fans are great, and they get loud. We really talked about it, we played Gonzaga out in Portland on a neutral court, and we played Florida State and they didn't have a lot of people there at the game. So we haven't really been in these environments, we haven't been in these hornet's nests and how they are.
And he wanted the ball. Some of those pull-ups he made, obviously he was kind of cold from 3. He could've ended it in regulation, I thought Braden [Smith] made a great pass. And that's what we talked about what was open.
Fletcher was great, and I've never seen him dunk before — if we're calling that a dunk. When you recruit a guy since they're 16 and you've seen them for four years, you normally see everything they have.
On Brandon Newman helping the team...
Painter: I think we had a lot of guys do good things, but the way they move and the way they cut, we had to go a little bit smaller. And we were trying to find some people that could make a shot. He ended up getting more playing time down the stretch.
He's really rebounded the ball well for us, I thought he did some good things defensively. He's no different than anybody else, he missed some shots but a lot of people missed some shots. He's been great, and I thought David Jenkins really gave us a good lift. He made a couple shots there in the first half and did some good things.
You just get stuck as a coach once you kind of get into one of those meat grinders about who you're going to go with and who you're not going to go with.
On the differences in this year's Nebraska team...
Painter: They defend. Yeah, they play defense. I mean seriously because when you guard and you make it stingy on people, you're going to get some turnovers from that. When you make it stingy and you're hard, and you do your job constantly, you stay connected. When you got a guy or two that breaks down all the time, it doesn't matter what the three other guys do, they eventually find them.
This year, they don't. The guys that they have, they're bought into it. Fred [Hoiberg] is a really good coach, they run outstanding stuff. Very, very hard to guard. Very hard to gameplan for. And then Derrick is so good at wheeling and dealing, you know he's making some jump hooks over a 7'4" guy who had seven blocks in the game.
I know offensively they do some good things, but their improvement is because of the defensive end. It just kills your morale when guys break down defensively because you work so hard, and they're not breaking down very much. They're doing some really, really good things.
And like I said earlier, they deserved to win this game just as much as we did. They're going to beat some people, they're not just going to beat some people here, they're going to beat some people on the road too. They've got a good club.
What's hard is that they're putting some pieces together, so they have experience but they don't have a lot of experience together. But that's just the landscape of college basketball now. You've got to be able to get that figured out.
A lot of people doubted us because of that, and then we've been able to have — so far — a successful nonconference.
On Nebraska's ability to come down with rebounds...
Painter: The thing that happens a lot, when you get people into tough 2s and runners and post moves, you've got short rebounds around the goal. When you shoot a lot of 3s, you get those long rebounds and now you've gotta step to your man and you've gotta have your guards get those rebounds.
They were active. No different than how we try to do offensively, getting those long offensive rebounds and trying to spray out and get another 3, they did a really good job of getting to it. But we have to do a better job, no matter what the configuration is on the court. Whether you're in by the lane or you're out and you're spread out, you still have to do your job when a shot goes up and stick your man and go get it.
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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.