Everything Matt Painter Said Following Purdue's 88-80 Loss to Illinois

Trey Kaufman-Renn and Braden Smith played extremely well, but it wasn't enough to get Purdue a win on Friday night in Champaign. The Boilermakers fell 88-80 to the Fighting Illini, losing for the fifth time in the last seven games.

Kaufman-Renn ended the night with a game-high 29 points and Braden Smith added 18 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds. Fletcher Loyer also scored 14.

But it wasn't enough. All five of Illinois' starters reached double figures and overcame a 10-point deficit in the second half to get the win.

After the game, coach Matt Painter spoke with reporters. Here's everything he said after the loss.

On Purdue's effort to close out the game ...

Painter: "I thought they made some good plays. Obviously, you'd like to have some things back defensively, get a few more stops, but like you said, we got what we wanted the whole night in terms of shot selection. Had some shot there in the last five or six minutes that were really high-quality shots that didn't go down for us.

"We had the ball in the hands of the people we wanted to and the people it will continue to go back to. Proud of our guys, though. Some shots didn't go down, but I thought from a rebounding standpoint, they only get five offensive rebounds in the game after they got every offensive rebound in the last game. I thought that was a pretty impressive effort from us. We're not the greatest rebounding team in the world, but I thought our effort was great.

"We took care of the ball, only had eight turnovers, just like them. We just have to keep taking those shots. Those are quality shots across the board. A lot of the actions that we were running were really successful. Sometimes, from a results base, you don't make some you look like it doesn't work. In reality, those guys make those shots a lot.

"At halftime, Trey Kaufman was 6-for-11, I thought all five of his misses were all shots he normally makes. You're not going to make all of them, but getting him 23 shots, getting Braden 19 shots and liking the quality of the shots. Braden's one at the end of the half I don't think was a good shot, but besides that, I thought those guys did a really good job.

"We had to be better, a little bit sharper defensively there if we weren't going to convert some of those shots at the end of the game."

On the significance of Cam Heide fouling out ...

Painter: "Yeah, he did a lot of good things for us. Sometimes, just being out there, if you look at his stat line it's not going to wow you, but sometimes that's what it is, right? You're just better when somebody is out there on the court, and this was one of those games where we were better when he was on the court.

"You want what's working. I thought when we subbed midway through the first half, I thought our bench came in and did some really good things and we went on a nice run. He was a part of that. Then when we did it in the second half, we weren't quite as good. That's the misleading thing, sometimes in coaching, when you get that group together and now they play well. That's kind of how I rotate. We've seen that where it doesn't work for us and where it does work for us. Both halves were different for us, I thought they played really well in that half.

"Sometimes, you're with people out there and it really helps you and sometimes it's the other way. But Cam's been great. Cam's been working hard."

On the scout on Kasparas Jakucionis and Will Riley ...

Painter: "It just depends on what they're going to go to. If they're going to go with more ball screen stuff with Jakucionis, his ability to pass — you don't want to give him angles. We're not in the ability all the time, especially when you play from the top, to be able to get him to his weak hand. A lot of times with great players, when you try to get them one way or the other, you're creating angles for them. That's the one thing — you want to take his space up to the best of your ability and not give him angles.

"He made that tough shot at the end and he scored over us. That's what you want him to do. Doesn't mean he can't make it, it just means it's the lesser of all evils.

"Will Riley is just a real tough matchup for anybody, just with his size and his skill level and his ability to make a three, make a pull-up, to drive, to kind of play with a back-down game when he gets somebody smaller on him.

"They're both very dangerous players, very talented players. It's hard to adjust into college. It's easier for Jakucionis, just because from Day 1 he had the basketball and he played and he could kind of work through things. Riley sometimes earlier on didn't play as much, and now that we're here in conference season, you just see that kind of talent.

"You just have to be positive with those guys. I always tell them we can't rebound your turnover. Just don't turn the basketball over — play, have fun. You miss four or five shots in a row? Cool, make the next one, because they're so good. Both of those guys are so good. Keep making shots, keep making the right play, stay positive, keep learning. They're really good players."

On if turnovers increase when Trey Kaufman-Renn is out ...

Painter: "No, it's a lack of concentration, because they didn't force them. It's like tennis, it was unforced errors. Especially, the two in the first half, we just turned it over. One was a post feed, then we just got too deep the other time.

"Obviously, when I play him, he plays 35 minutes. When I look back when he plays, I always say do we get more from him if he play him at 32 more than 35? You always second-guess. That's always what I try to do with Fletch, get him around 30. I think that gives us more. In the first half, when Fletch was out, we made a good run. In the second half, when Fletch was out, we did not.

"There's other variables, right? So, you're saying that, you can't just magnify one variable, there's a lot of other things that happen on the court when somebody's in or somebody's out. You have to give him a rest. You have to give guys a rest and hope they can play better when they're in there."

On Braden Smith's performance with Big Ten Player of the Year voting soon ...

Painter: "He's a great player. He's very unselfish, he's a winner. I know he doesn't look at it that way. We're disappointed, we didn't win the Big Ten. He won the Big Ten his first two years, so we're all disappointed. Sometimes, when that happens, it's kind of hard to look at anything else because you're not really concerned with it. You're going to help your cause if you just keep winning.

"Those guys have won a lot, Braden's won a lot. To kind of look at his stat line to night and look at some of the situations there at the end, we just keep encouraging him to be positive and just keep taking it, keep being aggressive, just keep staying with it. Sometimes when you make a lot of right decisions, it doesn't go your way.

"He's been great. In my opinion, he's the best player in this league. They call it the Most Valuable Player, right? He's pretty valuable. Who rebounds like him? Who gets assists like him? Who scores like him? Leads the league in steals or he's second in steals. He's pretty good. He's pretty good. For a guy who had one high-major offer, he's damn good. I think he'll play 10 years in the NBA. I think he's fabulous.

"He affects winning. We get away from that, we look at different things, but he affects winning on both ends of the court."

On Purdue play more one-on-one defense in the post ...

Painter: "We had Trey Kaufman out in rotations because we wanted Furst on Ivisic and we wanted to high-hedge that. We didn't want Jakucionis to be able to get into the paint anytime he wanted to. We normally play drop with those guys or we steer into a switch. Tonight, we wanted to do that.

"Once we saw rotations — for whatever reason, they can't take guys that dive. It drives me nuts. Like, take the guys that dive, let them throw it out, let's play into closeouts. It's not ideal, but you're keeping the ball out of the paint. When we kept the ball out of the paint, we had more success.

"I know they hit some tough ones late, but through this whole year, the data that we have, it makes more sense for this team to do that. We just stayed at home. Obviously, he got that one little jump hook, we got a jump out of another one. We were just going to make him score over us, and then hopefully keep him out of the middle, especially when he's on that right block going to his left. That was the one that was dangerous. But he went the other way and got to the basket. It was just so deep. You don't want layups, you want them to be post moves. We just didn't keep him out as much.

"Our inability to handle them diving — which, I don't know why — we just didn't take divers. It drives me crazy."

On what he sees from Illinois ...

Painter: "I think they're a really talented offensive team. I think they cause a lot of problems. If you look at Oregon, at Indiana and a couple of home games, they can blitz you. They take the fifth-most threes in the country and they make like 330th. So it's, 'Wow.' That normally doesn't happen. I don't know if that's ever happened for a team that we've competed against. But how did they win the game here at the end? Made some threes.

"You know they're capable. They've got two guys in the 20s. They've got like seven dudes from 30-to-35. Like, how do you gauge it if you're not a team that can take everything away. We're not a team that can take everything away. We're a really good offensive team. We're the 10th-best offensive team in the country, we're the 50th-best defense. We're not as good defensively, they're not as good defensively.

"We needed to score more. That's terrible to say from a coaching standpoint, right? But we needed to score more. We got the shots to do it. For me, they're one of those teams that could just blitz people in the NCAA Tournament. But if they get in one of those ruts, that could beat them.

"You've got to have balance. But when you're dealing with people — and I know why he does it, because you keep them confident. You want your players to be confident, but you've got to get to the free throw line and get some layups sometimes. Not sometimes, you have to. You've got to steal some points. When we got that lead late in the game, they got some layups, they got the and-one, they got a couple of drives, got to the free throw line, got in the bonus ... You've got to be able to get free throws and layups in this game, especially when you get onto a neutral court. You just do.

"It's going to be how the wind blows for them. They can beat anybody in the country when they get it going. I know they had a tough game against Duke, but they can. You see that Oregon game, you see at Indiana, you see a couple of these home games — they have spurts, four minutes, eight minutes, whatever. They've had a handful of games where they're just nasty. Then, they've had other games where it's like, 'Hey, let's drive the basketball. Let's get inside.'

"For them to be at a peak level against an elite team, they have to shoot those threes and make them. If they do, now they can get some people on the ropes and they can make a long run in the tournament. They're talented. They're very, very talented. I like his offensive system. Gotta have guys that can pass the basketball. When they're really passing the basketball, they're dangerous.

On the potential of frustration with an uneven whistle with Trey Kaufman-Renn ...

Painter: "The frustration is with him. It doesn't make sense at times, the way he — to their defense, he's all over the place sometimes. Like, his legs are going out, his arms are going out. When they call small change things and they leave that alone, I just don't understand the consistency of that.

"I wouldn't say that from a team standpoint, I just say individually for him. If you go out and watch, 'OK, this gets called, that gets called.' You also have to go back and look and if he initiates it, that's on him. So, if he's initiating that contact, and he's going back into people — those are tough calls for the officials."

On if Purdue can figure out how to avoid fouling ...

Painter: "We try not to foul. Two years ago, we were the No. 1 team in the country in fewest fouls. We've been up there. Three years in a row in the Big Ten we've committed the fewest fouls. This year we have not, but we're not terrible.

"We just have to be better. You have to worry about what you can control and we've got to be better. It's just interesting that it gets us only on the road. Right?

"It's hard for me before I watch tape. I'm pretty good for half of it, with the game in front of me. I'm not real good on the other end, I'm not good at gauging things. I'll have to go back and watch tape. They have a tough job."