Here's What Matt Painter Said After No. 3 Purdue's Win Over Nicholls
WEST LAFAYETTE Ind. — The No. 3-ranked Boilermakers charge on to improve to 12-1 after their 104-90 win over Nicholls on Wednesday.
Monday, the team officially moves into Big Ten play starting with Wisconsin at Mackey Arena.
Here's what Coach Matt Painter had to say about Purdue's win over the Colonels. Feel free to read the transcript or just watch the attached video of the full press conference.
Q: On role definition and talent in players
PAINTER: Do you have people that are talented players? I'm trying to get their production as high as their talent. I think that's always the quest as a coach, like guys that can jump. Should they be able to get rebounds? Guys that are quick, should they be able to contain the dribble?
You know, being functional with the talents you have, so there's going to be games — and I've discussed this with guys —there's going to be games, even guys that start the game, that they're not going to play as much. If we get into games that matter and you don't feel like the game's getting away from you like if something works, you end up staying with it as a coach.
That's why you see coaches as years progress, like their rotation doesn't get longer or maintained. It gets shorter because they lose trust in certain players. That's the one thing you got to be able to do. Even though you like them as a player.
Even though you recruited them, they're on your team or whatever, you got to play the game the right way so the coach can trust you. If your coach doesn't trust you, you know as the season progresses, you're going to play less and less.
That's the word that doesn't get used enough, and players don't understand that when they get recruited. You know, high school guys will play sometimes, and they're so much better than everyone else because they're so much more talented than everybody else. They get to play there.
Now when you get to college, you got to be able to trust those guys, be able to go out, run your stuff, stick to your defensive rules, and sometimes you'll have a guy out there that's more talented than everyone else on the college level kind of like a high school deal.
Now, when you go to the pros, all those guys are special. Now, who can do their job? Who knows how to play the right way? Who can play a role? Role definition is so important, so we got some guys who have really done a good job with their role, but it's still hard, especially when you're younger.
It's still really, really hard, so you're constantly trying to communicate with them and talk with them to try and help them along, but there's going to be hard lessons when they don't get to play as much or at all in certain games.
Q: On Brandon Newman coming in off the bench
PAINTER: You're subbing in, and you're going back and forth, like a lot of times you don't get 22 minutes like you got tonight, so tonight was a lot of minutes coming off the bench right there, and we need to get him in modes of getting him clean looks at the basket.
He's a really good shooter, the fact that he doesn't turn it over is great, but then coming in and you're struggling in areas while you're coming in off the bench, if you can help us in those areas, it's going to help your cause.
Sometimes guys don't get that figured out. Sometimes they can't see past their own nose, but Brandon can shoot the basketball. Sometimes you're struggling with rebound, and he'll come in and rebound. I thought he had a couple good rebounds tonight for us.
Come in and defend, and shut that guy down, or shut one of their guys down, or get the 50/50 ball, some of the things we've discussed here, it's so important if you can learn to come in and play to your strengths and really help us in some of those areas. It will help you. That's what he's got to do, but that's also what everyone's got to do.
Q: On areas Nicholls performed better
PAINTER: I thought they played harder, and when the ball went up, I thought they got 50/50 balls better than us. I thought when we had to box out and fight for them, I thought we won a couple of them, but for the most part, they won those. I thought they were just quicker with the basketball. They did a better job than us.
Q: On COVID-19 protocol and rising cases
PAINTER: It's very fortunate, cause it's not always you. It's your opponent also, so our guys have been vaccinated. They've gotten the booster. You got to do, in my opinion, everything in your power to help yourself and the program and to help other people, and our guys have done that, so you know kudos to them.
We've been through this, right? Now you can kind of smell there's obviously some change that's going on now, and you just hope for the best. You want these guys to have the full experience. You want your fans. We're a self sufficent school, and so we raise a lot of our own money and stuff like that, and the people that help with that, that pay the scholarships for all our athletes you know you want them to experience the full experience too, and so that's really what we're searching for.
Hopefully we can have that full experience for our players, for our fans, everybody, because not all of our fans get to come to our games. They watch a lot on television, so if that could happen across the country, that would be great.
Q: On things that work for the Boilermakers
PAINTER: You get some things that can work against you that are contagious, alright. But you can also get some things that can work for you that are contagious, and when guys pass the basketball, that makes it fun, and when guys are out there moving and cutting, they know that Trevion will find them. They know Ethan will find them, so I think that balance for us of having good low post play, scoring in transition, but once we get into half court, just moving the ball, passing the ball and having a lot of fun.
Q: On Zach Edey being newer to the game
PAINTER: He's put in a lot of time. Any time you find somebody that ends up being great, they normally have a pretty good routine. Like you got a good hitter in baseball. He's got a good routine of how he does stuff, and Zach has his routine on what he does before, what he does after practice, and he puts in that time.
He's also a sponge. When guys play basketball their whole life, they have a lot of different people that are giving them advice through the years. Zach hasn't done that. This is his fifth year of playing organized basketball, so whenever you say something to him, there's not a wall there to where you hope you can get through that wall so they're listening to what you say.
He just listens to what you say, so like from a passing standpoint — tonight he has four assists, zero turnovers, that's fabulous from where he was last year starting the season. He's done a really good job of letting things slow down, but he's worked really hard just like the rest of our offense. He's worked really hard to be in this position, but he's fun to coach.
Q: On how each team did offensively and defensively
PAINTER: I thought both teams were pretty good offensively, and both teams depending on how you want to look at, weren't as good on the defensive end. They were making some really tough shots, and it just depends on how you look at it in terms of breakdowns that we had.
They made some shots that we didn't break down. Then obviously they took advantage of us when we did break down. I asked our team at the end — I just said if the ball's not going in for us, how is this game unfolding? You probably lose that game.
Obviously, we shot the ball well. We were able to go inside and establish some things there, but I think you got to give Nicholls a lot of credit. They have some shotmakers. They have some versatility.
They had a guy make three threes in this game who hadn't made a three all season, so from a scouting report standpoint, that really gave them a boost when he knocked those shots down for them, but Gordon's a real player. He is tough to handle when he gots hot. You know, we got to do a better job than we did, but I also thought offensively we played really well to win the game.
Related stories on Purdue basketball
- PURDUE DEFEATS NICHOLLS: Purdue has run the table in the nonconference portion of its schedule, winning its 11th straight game this season with a convincing 104-90 win over Nicholls on Wednesday at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind. CLICK HERE.
- PHOTO GALLERY: In a new feature here at Sports Illustrated Purdue, here is a photo gallery from the game. It include more than a dozen photos. CLICK HERE
- LIVE BLOG: Here's our live blog from Purdue's win over Nicholls, with all the play-by-play and views in real time. CLICK HERE
- FORFEIT POLICY: The Big Ten has updated its forfeit policy on COVID-19-related incidents after this recent outbreak. CLICK HERE
