What Matt Painter Said After No. 11 Purdue's 73-70 Loss to Ohio State

Tuesday was a tough night for No. 11 Purdue. The Boilermakers saw a seven-game winning streak come to an end, falling 73-70 to Ohio State and dropping to 15-5 overall and 7-2 in Big Ten play.

Purdue got off to a hot start and broke open a 16-point lead in the first half. But Ohio State used a 20-2 run in the second half to get back into the game and eventually steal one at Mackey Arena.

After the game, coach Matt Painter spoke with reporters about the outcome. Here's what he had to say.

On what changed for Purdue in the second half ...

Painter: "Obviously, the first five minutes of the second half, they went on that run and (we) got a little impatient offensively. A big part of the game is finishing the (first) half and then starting the second half. We've been pretty good at the start of second halves this year. Obviously, we weren't (today), but a lot of that had to do with (Ohio State). I thought they played really well, made shots, did some good things.

"We messed up our assignment at the end of the first half, didn't do what we were supposed to and give up a three. And then we fall down to start the second half and give up another three. So, now they've got it to 10 instead of it being at 16.

"We struggled to score there, but I thought we were getting pretty quality shots. We'll see when I go back and watch. A lot of things we talk to our guys about is not getting frustrated when you take good shots and you miss them. But, you know, your margin of error is going to be different — you're not scoring the basketball. Don't look at it like what we're doing is wrong, stay with it and stay process based.

"We had to do a better job on them, we had to do a better job guarding them at that time. Bruce (Thornton) got to the middle a couple of times, we wanted to keep it out of the middle. But, they have good pieces. They have a good team. I told our guys they were 2-5 coming in but (if) three possessions are different, they're 5-2 in the league.

"They lost a lot of close games. Devin Royal being out last game really hurt them. It really helped them (today) coming back in. When you force somebody into 18 turnovers and you outrebound them by six in the first half, you've put yourself in a pretty good position, especially when you only turn it over 11 times. We just had to do a better job finishing at the rim. We had the ball at the rim, especially in the last four or five minutes of the game. We had three straight possessions where we're three feet from the rim and we got nothing out of it. Once again, that's what you want, right? That's where you want the ball, those are the shots you want, we just have to do a better job converting."

On how Micah Parrish was able to make so many threes ...

Painter: "He just had triple-threat threes. He just squared us up, jabbed on time and shot it. The other time, just kind of paused and shot it. We had to break his rhythm. We were right there on those last two threes. But you can't just let someone shoot the basketball.

"Fletcher (Loyer) had to break his rhythm. That's what we always talk about, not letting them catch the basketball, not letting a jab take you away and getting out of rhythm.

"Give him credit, though, he's a streaky guy. You're up to that point and he's already hit four — that's what streaky guys are. When they miss them, they get away from him. When he makes them, they're going to hunt him. We just had to do a better job there."

On if the return from the West Coast had an impact in the game ...

Painter: "I think (you can't) sit there and get worked up about things you can't control. It's part of it. I thought we did a good job at Washington and Oregon of playing hard and guarding and being determined and doing things. Then you travel back and, that's just part of it. It's going to happen to everybody.

"It's not something — everybody has got to be able to travel. It's the hardest on the West Coast teams. It's a lot harder for them than it is for anybody else. They travel a lot more miles than we do.

"We just have to be better. Finish at the rim better and defend a little bit better, execute a little bit better. When people play you in a drop, you're not going to get as many threes. You're just not. It's not that big of a deal, just make good decisions and take good shots.

"We've played against both: We've played against guys that are aggressive with their hedge, we've played against guys that flatten it out, and then we've played against guys who drop more."

On the scoreboard showing the wrong score near the end of the game ...

Painter: "They kept changing it. I knew what the score was, but then it actually changed and it gave us a point. The difference was three, but when it popped up it was two. So, then when we said something to him that the score was wrong, I don't think they realized it. I think that's a difficult thing for an official. It's not their job — they have to have a pulse on the score, right? But when you're running and things are going on.

"But yeah, we knew what the actual score was. Then when you look up there, you think, 'Well, maybe they had something wrong before.' You're just trying to gauge where you're at, especially when you run out of timeouts. When you're out of timeouts, you've got to be able to pass that along to your guys so they know exactly if we have to go for a two or a three if we get in that situation."

On Ohio State making four three-pointers at the buzzer ...

Painter: "I'd have to watch it. Sean Stewart was 0-for-1 from three on the year. What they're running on the out of bounds play is not for him. And we took that away, we took it all away. He did a great job of popping out as the receiver, and that was a huge shot.

"I don't know off the top of my head (with the other three) what actually happened, so I'd have to watch it. But, yeah, that's 12 points, right?"

On the play of Gicarri Harris and CJ Cox given Braden Smith's foul trouble ...

Painter: "I thought they did a good job. That's why Myles (Colvin) didn't play as much, because when they were pressing, they were trying to take Braden away or take our other point away. We wanted more ball-handlers in there at that time.

"I thought they both did a good job, I thought they did a good job defending. There's always things that you can learn from, especially when you get into late-game situations defensively. But I thought CJ and Gicarri did some good things.

"Gicarri made his free throws, made those two threes — that was a huge three he made in the second half and really got us going. We had a hustle play in the first half that Trey (Kaufman-Renn) got then kicked it out to him and got another three.

"It kind of shows you defensively what they were doing, because Gicarri gets one of them on a scramble, he gets another one in transition and we only take nine threes. That's what people have always tried to do against us, try to take our attempts away.

"That's why you see Trey open up so much. When you see the pocket pass and see them staying and you're like, 'Why is he always open on that shovel?' Because they're going to live with that instead of that spray-out three. If they're going to come over and help as we put a single side away, now he's going to be able to make that pass if they over-help. And they stayed home on our shooters on those. So, he's going to get more opportunities.

"That's what I've tried to explain to you guys through the years and the last couple years, when you see that, you're going to see a lot of attempts from Braden Smith and you're going to see a lot of attempts from Trey. They shot 30 times between them. You're going to see more of that. When people hedge us or they switch it or whatever, now you're going to see a balance of shots a little bit better than you would when people play a drop."

On Purdue getting outrebounded in the second half ...

Painter: "I'll have to watch, but that normally happens — if you have to over-help and you don't have clean rotations, you're not going to have clean block-out responsibilities. There's no question — I don't know if that's the case or not, I'll have to watch —they were quicker to the ball than we were in the second half. I thought we were quicker to the ball than them in the first half. I thought some things went our way.

"I think that's what happens when you see that ball go in and you gain confidence, I think that helps other things. I think that helped us in the first half and helped them in the second half."

On Purdue never getting too high or too low during the season or in a game ...

Painter: "You don't want to get into that foul game, and obviously they fouled us at the end when they're up three. You don't want to get into that foul game too quick, especially when the guys who are catching it — Mobley and Thornton — are really good free throw shooters. Devin Royal, I think he was like 74 (percent) going into the game and he made 8-for-10 and did a great job.

"You know, you get on a win streak — we hadn't lost since Auburn — and you just want to move to the next game. And then when you lose — you've got to be able to look at some wins and kind of pick at yourself when you win. Because you always pick at yourself when you lose. If you really want to improve, you've got to really pick at yourself. So, that's what we try to do with our guys.

"We're doing some really good things sometimes when we lose a game. Keep that in perspective. We also have some struggles. We weren't perfect against Washington and Oregon, but yet we won the game. Don't look at it that way, try to make improvements from there.

"That's what we've always tried to instill in our guys. Let's learn, not just when we lose a game, let's learn when we win a game, but let's also look at some things from a pretty clean perspective.

"In this game here, there are some good things that happened for us. The ball was getting where we wanted it, we didn't convert a lot of times. We have to do a better job of converting. I thought from a process standpoint, we over-dribbled a little bit, got a little too deep sometimes, but the ball was getting in position for us to score, we just didn't convert enough."