What Matt Painter Said After Purdue's 75-73 Loss to Michigan

With six seconds left in Tuesday night's game, Michigan owned a 75-73 lead on Purdue and Danny Wolf stepped to the free throw line. The 7-footer missed both free throws, the Boilermakers got the rebound and Braden Smith put up a 3-pointer for a chance to escape Ann Arbor with a victory.

Smith's shot was off the mark and the Wolverines held on to defeat the Boilers 75-73, taking over first place in the Big Ten standings. Smith ended the game with 24 points, six rebounds and five assists.

After the loss, Purdue coach Matt Painter met with reporters. Here's everything he had to say following the game.

On the late foul on Caleb Furst ...

Painter: "You always magnify plays that happen at the end of the game, right? You give them more juice just because that's what happened at the end. You make those plays, you give yourself a better chance.

"It's away from me. You know what I mean? I'm watching people shoot the basketball, I'm not watching people box out when it's away from me. I see a lot more when it's right in front of me.

"Just had to get a couple of those rebounds. Obviously we outrebound them by four — we get 14 offensive rebounds, they get 12. But, they got a couple of key ones. The one they got where they got (Nimari) Burnett a three, I think we foul them on another one, they get a put-back on another one, the and-one. We just had to make those plays. No different than the offense.

"I thought offensively we were getting the ball where we wanted to get the ball. Trey (Kaufman-Renn) was getting that ball in the sweet spot, he was making some nice reads, some dump-downs where he got challenged at the rim, and we had to convert some of them, or we had to go to the free throw line. We just didn't.

On Trey Kaufman-Renn's foul trouble in this game ...

Painter: "You're looking at five fouls, so you've got to go dissect five fouls and it's normally not the same call. They're all different. We tried to manage it — it was a very physical game — we tried to manage it to the best of our ability with offense, defense, subs. At some point, he's got to play the whole time, because offensively we need him. We need him in there."

On Purdue's bench scoring zero points ...

Painter: "If they took a bunch of shots, it makes more sense. They didn't take a bunch of shots. You want your best scorers to shoot the most, right? So when you think of 51 shots between those three guys (Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn) and all those were efficient. You look at their numbers, look what they did.

"The thing that jumps out is Trey Kaufman(-Renn) not shooting free throws. You shoot the ball 19 times, you touch the ball every single possession," Painter said. "We've got to be able to generate some free throws for him. He shoots some floaters and runners, but not 19 of them."

On Michigan's 9-0 run late in the first half ...

Painter: "(Kaufman-Renn) Is out of the game at that point, too. For us, trying to get him in to where we're not battling that. When we're not battling that, we're obviously a better team. We just have to be better. He's not always going to be in the game. He played 30 minutes, he played enough. That's what he averages, he averages 30 minutes per game. So, to keep him fresh sometimes we play him 30 when he's not in foul trouble.

"But, in a big game like this, and now he's a big weapon and how we operate and how we do things. Now, when you don't have him, they had a lot of success while he was out."

On Purdue's turnovers around the rim ...

Painter: "You just have to complete it. You have to put it up in the air, put it on the floor, you just have to complete it. You have to see the distance you have, who it is, you have to deliver the basketball.

"But it was a handful of them. Even the ones we completed, like now there's collisions at the rim. It just happens so quick, we just have to do a better job converting on those."

On if Purdue needs to figure something out when Kaufman-Renn is out of the game ...

Painter: "Yeah ... you guys are just speaking in theory here. We had four shots we took at the end of the half. So if you thought Braden's shot at the end of the (first half vs. Iowa) was a good shot when he hit the three, you have to think it's a good shot when he misses it. Fletcher gets a wide-open three, Cam (Heide) gets a wide-open three, CJ (Cox) gets a wide-open three and we go 0-for-4.

"But do you want those guys taking those four shots? I want them taking them. So, they're good shots. Don't play the game in theory, play the game in reality in that we're going to stay process-based, we're going to take good shots.

"Now, when Trey Kaufman's out of the game and you don't have that balance, why are they getting those shots when he's out of the game? When your guys generate a good shot and they take it and they miss it, I think that's a positive because, more times than not, those percentages are going to win out for you."

On where Purdue feels Kaufman-Renn's absence more ...

Painter: "It's more offense. It's more offense. You can't run the same things without him, in terms of if they twist, turn. They're playing zone into man and matching towards things. That really helps when you have him in there, because he can operate at the nail when he gets the ball in the high-post."