What Matt Painter Said After Purdue's 75-60 Loss to UConn in the National Championship
Purdue couldn't quite close the deal this year. Despite a fabulous run in this year's NCAA Tournament, the Boilermakers fell 75-60 to UConn in the national championship on Monday night.
Although Purdue wanted to bring a championship back to West Lafayette, it was still a fabulous run. The Boilers ended the season with a 34-5 record, won a second straight Big Ten regular season title and reached the Final Four for the first time since 1980.
By all accounts, the 2023-24 season was a successful one for the Boilermakers. Here's everything coach Matt Painter had to say following Purdue's loss to UConn on Monday night.
Matt Painter's opening statement ...
Yeah, want to congratulate UConn on the win. I thought they had some separation there in the first half. At the end we had a couple plays where they made some tough shots. We had some shots at the rim. It just kind of pushed that lead to six right there. We needed kind of a break to keep that even.
I thought the difference, I thought our guys really gave good effort and energy defensively in guarding them. I thought the real difference ended up being their ability to offensive rebound in the second half.
We just were wasting so much energy to fight once they got it to double-digits; then we would get stops, and we couldn't get rebounds. That was just really hard for us to overcome at that time.
They did a great job of staying home. We were going to go to the well with Zach as much as we could at that point. In a game like this, we had to be able to rebound defensively better, and then we had to have something balance that out. That was threes. They stayed home with us. They did a really good job defensively.
They get a lot of credit. Donovan Clingan is a very good defensive player. But we've played against athletes, played against some really good defensive guys this year and in the tournament, but not the collection of defensive players like UConn has.
We play against somebody, they would have a lock-down defender. These guys are bringing lock-down defenders off the bench. Defense always travels. Tip the hat to them. They were great. Danny has done a fabulous job. Obviously won back-to-back national championships. Congratulations to UConn.
On how Zach Edey should be remembered ...
Well, when you look at a lot of things, I think the separator normally comes to how successful somebody was, right? So it's hard for me to look at things. But when you look at his numbers against the greats, there's no question he's in the conversation. But he's also the winningest player at Purdue.
We won our league back-to-back years by multiple games. First time that's happened in the Big Ten since I was in kindergarten. We got to the championship game after having a disappointing loss, he got to a Sweet 16. He went to four tournaments.
I think that's always what kind of separates everybody. Everybody wants to have the argument about the G.O.A.T., who is the greatest. That's the ultimate separator because every person in that conversation is great. I think he was great in how he did it, too.
People have no idea the burden you carry when you're as good as he is, produce like he does going into opposing arenas.
A lot of those old-timers, they didn't have to hear it on social media. For young people that are successful, they have to go through a lot of stuff. But in a way you kind of like it 'cause it toughens you up, allows you to focus, allows you to push through things.
I just told him in the locker room, You're not going to go on in life and push past here and not deal with adversity. In the workforce, in relationships, everything. You're going to deal with adversity. He was superior dealing with adversity. He was a guy that didn't get recruited, then all of a sudden he started to get recruited, then that picked up. That got him on edge. All the great ones stay on edge.
He's going to be a terrific NBA player. We're really proud of him.
On Purdue's poor 3-point performance vs. UConn ...
Yeah, they were just going to let us play one on one in the post. You see the 25 attempts that Zach had.
For us, we're just going to throw him the basketball and keep going, just be able to keep going to the well.
You hope through the game in, like, what you do, that we could loosen that and get him. When you play in the NCAA tournament, you win six games, they led for I think everything except six minutes, four minutes and 20 seconds, just kind of think about that. You got to get them on their heels.
For us to get them to change, we had to get the lead, get 'em on their heels, and then get in that 10-minute mark. We couldn't get there. We couldn't get rebounds. You can't go on runs if you can't get stops.
They're a great defensive team. So they just made a decision, like, we can defend the perimeter and we can take this away from you, then you're just going to get the ball to your best player, he's going to be one on one, then that's that.
They were going to live with that.
If we could have rebounded the basketball better, we could have got them to change and do that, but we weren't able to do that. Then they stayed in control of the game.
Not everybody can do what they just did. You have to give credit to their defense and their coach and how they're wired.
On the burden Edey faced during his career ...
Yeah, it's also a backhanded compliment, right? People like myself who averaged four points, no one cares about you. The fans don't, like, pay attention to you. I call it cartoon bad guy. Ever watch the cartoons, there's the bad guy that gets all the hate and everybody is coming at him? The best player in college basketball, the best player in your conference becomes cartoon bad guy.
That's the way it is. But it's also a backhanded compliment. There's millions of basketball players out there that would love to carry that burden. Not everybody can do it. Very few get that. He's done it. He shows up.
I'd always say, When is he going to have a bad game? When is he just not going to show up? He always showed up. He always competed. He always played through physicality. He's a very unselfish player. I think that's the piece of it.
But it's hard, man. It's hard to go through that, especially in today's world. What eats up a young player is positive comments, because then they get full of themselves. Then the negative comments, like you feel sorry for him. This guy doesn't deserve this or whatever. It's kind of how you look at things, how you handle things. He always stayed really professional. Even when they're hanging on him and fouling him, doing stuff throughout the year.
They didn't do that at first 'cause who he is today, that's not who he was three years ago. I always would talk about, like, he'd play 17 minutes, he'd get 12 points, six rebounds, four fouls, six turnovers, we'd go to the monitor twice. Then all of a sudden six games later, like, he's not elbowing people in the head anymore. He couldn't pass at one time. Then all of a sudden he could pass. Well, he never got doubled so why should he have to pass?
It's amazing the way he's grown and the way he's developed, but also how he's went about it, the way he's stayed professional.
On if Purdue looked back at any nonconference opponent to prepare for UConn ...
No, not really. The point of interest is, like, you play Illinois, Terrence Shannon can really guard you. You play Tennessee, and Zeigler can really guard you. It doesn't mean the other guys aren't great defensive players. Probably good defensive players, right? I'm kind of in theory here.
They just had so many good defensive players. Like, at every position those guys do a great job. They know how to play. They move without the basketball. They have experience. From Tristen Newton's fifth-year, Cam Spencer's fifth-year, but Karaban and Clingan in their second year, they played like veterans. They have a great program a great system both offensively and defensively. They're a well-oiled machine.
That's where they separate because they do have lulls offensively, if you watch 'em. They'll beat somebody by 25, go three of 20 for three. What if they go 12 for 20? It shows you who they are.
They didn't get out on us and really get in transition because we didn't turn the ball over as much as some other people they played.
They're so good when they get in transition, they get those runs. But the difference with them is how they are defensively. They're a better defensive team overall than all those other teams we played, and that says something because those are some pretty good teams.
On UConn's on-ball pressure ...
We were one-dimensional because of how good Zach Edey is. We were comfortable going to him, right? We were comfortable continuing to do that. That's what they're giving you.
When a great defensive team says, Here is how we're going to play it, you want to fight, that take tough, bad threes, bad throws are going to be run-outs for them. We kept showing those clips. You hear people say they get thirsty. Three-point shooters, they don't get looks, now start taking ones they shouldn't take.
For them, they're just going to go score at the other end. That's what we were talking about. Take what they give you. If they take something away, whether it's Zach's post-up, Braden's ball screen, our threes, we still can get a quality shot.
We had to be better on the glass, in my opinion. Then we had to be a little more efficient in the shots we were getting that. Balance right there could have gotten us into the game. It would have gotten us into the game and made it a game, but we simply weren't able to do that.
On if the loss in the championship is a similar feeling to losing to Fairleigh Dickinson ...
No, it's a lot different. It's obviously a lot different to get to the Final Four and get into the championship game.
It hurts because these opportunities are slim. You say you're going to get back here, but you want to use this as motivation to get back here and keep growing your program.
But, no, it's a lot different than last year. When you put yourself in a great position and you don't take advantage of it. We put ourselves in a great position now and we took advantage of it. We just came up a little bit short to a great team.
I told our guys in the locker room, like, when you have the most wins in school history, you're the first team to win back-to-back championships by multiple games since 1976, which was the last undefeated team in college basketball, and you get an eyelash away from winning it all, that's the standard.
So, like, now just like any other year we're going to take two to three weeks off, then get back to work. It's not going to be a lot of work until the summer in terms of from a team standpoint. Those guys are going to be getting into the gym, fighting, competing. We like our young guys that are coming in next year, so we're excited.
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