What Matt Painter Said After No. 17 Purdue's 65-58 Win Over No. 13 Oregon
Purdue picked up another key Big Ten road win on Saturday, defeating No. 13 Oregon 65-58 in Eugene. It was the seventh straight win for the 17th-ranked Boilermakers, who are right in the thick of the race for another conference title.
Junior forward Trey Kaufman-Renn had a huge day, finishing with a double-double of 23 points and 11 rebounds. Guard Braden Smith also had a solid outing, scoring 15 points and dishing out seven assists.
After the game, coach Matt Painter talked with reporters about the win. Here's what he had to say.
On what Purdue has been able to do defensively ...
Painter: "For us, it starts with taking care of the basketball, we've been doing a good job there. We weren't great tonight, but good enough. Just taking care of it, taking good shots, and when it's not going your way and shots aren't going in, even when you take it and you miss it, you give yourself a chance to set your defense. I think it starts there.
"Trying to be connected. It's hard to go and play two games and then have somebody of the caliber of Oregon, who runs a lot of really good stuff. But, I thought our young guys — Myles (Colvin), Gicarri (Harris), CJ (Cox) — did a really, really good job. Fletcher (Loyer) and Braden had very active hands, understand what's going on, know their positioning. Cam (Heide) and Caleb (Furst) and Trey (Kaufman-Renn) and Raleigh (Burgess), just across the line I thought we were connected tonight.
"When things didn't go our way, we didn't get frustrated, we just kept guarding and trying to rebound and just be around the basketball."
On how has become a more connected team ...
Painter: "You're building habits. It's just everybody on the team. It's the old saying, 'You're as strong as your weakest link.' You're as strong as your worst defender. If you can play good team defense and you know what's going on and you can stay with the game plan, but you just can't get beat on the dribble all the time. You just can't get beat.
"I thought a couple of plays in the first half, we just got whipped on the dribble. Those are easy ones, you just can't have those. We diminished those, we did a better job blowing them up. We've tried our best to not allow people to get into the paint setting ball screens, when they're posting up or transition. We've tried to do that, but there's some risk involved there, you can give up some perimeter shots at times. We'd rather do that with this team than anything. Went to some switching and sometimes it's not ideal, but when people are good in pick-and-pops and getting out of things, we would rather do that than they have the matchup they want.
"We kind of go back-and-forth on things, but whatever we do, guys have been really good sticking to a game plan and fighting. You have your foundation defensively, so you have your core principles and you have specifics of things that can change in a scouting report. I'm not a huge change guy. I change a little bit here and there, but sometimes you have to be that way. I think a lot of people want to do that. If you change all the time and you have athletes, you can get away with it. But then you lose your foundation, your core principles that you want on defense. I don't like doing that, I like building on those and growing with it.
"I thought our guys were great, I thought they did a good job. We had a couple breakdowns here and there, but for the most part we stayed with it and I thought we had great effort. I thought our guys stayed with it and really played hard."
On Purdue's effort on the glass ...
Painter: "Yeah, staying around the basketball, getting our guards in there. Sometimes it can get inverted when you have matchups. Sometimes you stop them and you switch and you do different things, but then you have the mismatch on the glass and that's hard, that's really hard when you've got size against little people on the glass.
"There's some risk involved to what you do, but I thought our effort was great. I thought guys really swarmed the basketball on the glass."
On how Trey Kaufman-Renn has become a reliable option ...
Painter: "He's different. Obviously, you saw him have some trouble with (Nate) Bittle when he got one-on-one down there with his elite size. He made a couple of really nice plays. He's good at getting into that short roll and having the ball at the nail and having that 12-foot mark.
"Just trying to get him active and getting him into different actions to be able to get him the ball. Where he's grown is his decision-making. We don't win the game tonight if he doesn't make his free throws — it's the best night he's ever had shooting free throws, going 9-for-9. Just for his sanity, I'm happy that he made those.
"He's put a lot of time in every day. Like, people out there have no idea how that sticks in your brain as a competitor when you can't consistently make free throws and you keep working on it. So, he's worked on it, he got still tonight. Fewer movements in his shot. He really did a good job of knocking them down.
"He's been great. This matters to him and he's put in a lot of time."
On how beating Oregon helps in winning another Big Ten title ...
Painter: "It's huge because being able to win on the road is really, really difficult. They're a great team. Look who they've beat. They've beaten Alabama, they've beaten Texas A&M, they've beaten some really good teams.
"When you look at their resume, they have a lot of Quad 1 wins. A lot of them. For us, that really helps us from a big picture standpoint, but it also helps us in the league race. Whether it helps you, hurts you or it doesn't, you play three teams twice and you play 14 teams once — where you play them is important. Everybody asks what team has an advantage, and you really don't know until you play. Where you play them is important, too."
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Dustin Schutte is the publisher of ''Purdue Boilermakers on SI.'' He has more than a decade of experience covering the Big Ten. Follow Dustin on X at @SchutteDustin.