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CROSSROADS CLASSIC: PURDUE VS NOTRE DAME

December 17, 2016

Matt Painter

Indianapolis, Indiana

Purdue - 86, Notre Dame - 81

Q. Matt, you guys decided to go small in the second half. Obviously that worked. What was your thinking behind doing so?
MATT PAINTER: Well, I felt that we needed to have Vince Edwards on the floor. I thought he played a good first half. We wanted to put Carsen Edwards on Farrell, not let him just get it. I thought he was the key to what they were doing. He had 12 points, but he also had six assists in that first half, and so I thought if we tried to get into him a little bit and just not let them flow into what they wanted to do. And then I thought Dakota did a good job on Vasturia when he was guarding him in the first half, so we wanted to stay consistent there, but we also wanted to have a point guard in the game, too.

So sometimes it's not always just about the people that it involves, it's kind of the grand scheme of things from a defensive standpoint. Too many kind of your ball screen defensive package that doesn't involve the on-ball defender and the big guy, the other guys were making mistakes in how we handle it, and every time we made a mistake, they exposed us and knocked a three down, so we wanted to limit that.

But I felt like we got the shots we wanted in the first half. Even when we went big, I thought we took care of the ball. Our rebounding was okay. Just didn't go down for us, but we didn't get enough stops, so that's what we wanted to put our focus to in terms of the people that we started in the second half.

Q. Matt, at this point of the season with the conference quickly coming, how important is it to get a game like this?
MATT PAINTER: Oh, to get a quality win versus a team like Notre Dame, you know, they don't beat themselves. They don't miss free throws, they don't turn the basketball over, and they've had a lot of success in postseason play here the past two years. Just being able to get that quality win -- you don't know how everybody is going to do during the season, so sometimes you feel like you get a quality win and it's not the case.

With this one, you know, Notre Dame is going to be a really good team in the ACC. They're going to play well. They're going to be back in the tournament. So this is huge for us, but also kind of how we did it, the ability to come back in game like that versus a team like a Notre Dame that doesn't beat themselves, that's a huge confidence boost for us.

Q. You said before the game that this was going to be a good test for your defense. How do you think you guys did with that test?
MATT PAINTER: I thought we did a good job in the second half. I think -- but I thought it was -- it was the tale of two halves. I told them in the locker room, there's no reason why we can't play exactly the way Notre Dame played in the first half. We can flip this. Our shots can go in. We can do a little bit better job, and the more we make shots, I felt like the more we set our defense -- I always harp on when the ball goes in for us, it really helps us on the defensive end, and I thought that really worked for us, and we weren't beating ourselves. We weren't turning the basketball over. We rebounded the ball well in the second half. We did a lot of little things that showed up on the scoreboard.

Q. Vincent and Caleb, obviously great rebounders for you, but two of the biggest rebounds of the game, Ryan Cline out of nowhere; how about him?
MATT PAINTER: That was a huge rebound. For him he was sick yesterday and he didn't practice, so making those four free throws, knocking down that three, and when he subbed in in the second half, but getting that rebound was huge, and him and Dakota are guys that got a little size at the guard spot. They do a good job on the defensive glass.

Q. Did you learn anything about your team getting all those stops there at the end when you needed them?
MATT PAINTER: I think both teams were fatigued. Neither one of us play nine to ten guys, and I think both teams were fatigued and it was tough to kind of knock down shots at that point. But our team was definitely resilient the whole second half and didn't get into -- I really felt going into that last media time-out, I thought Swanigan had a fatigue foul when he fouled after the rebound. Carsen Edwards I didn't know at the time hit his elbow, so I think he was just tired, missing two free throws badly, and I was worried at that time, but our guys did a good job of just kind of hanging in there and getting some stops, but also getting that rebound and getting that loose ball.

Q. Just the impact Vince had on this game, the offensive rebounds obviously were pivotal, just his effort, and I don't want to make it about going to the bench, but these last couple games his effort has really been --
MATT PAINTER: Oh, it's been big time. He was probably the key to the game. Obviously Swanigan has huge numbers, but to have somebody like that come in and just have that kind of energy, make offensive rebounds, just make plays and make threes, was driving the basketball, passing the basketball. He's just a good all-around player. But that's the type of production we need from him. These past four games he's been very good, and each game has been a little bit different. One game he'll have eight assists, the next game he'll have 18 on a handful of shots, and tonight he did a lot of damage from a lot of different areas.

Q. Going back to Vincent, just do you feel like your confidence in him has just risen the last five games or so?
MATT PAINTER: Well, I think any time you get into when your team is not playing well, sometimes you've got to make an adjustment to get a spark from us. We have very good players at every position, but we're not the most athletic group at every position, and so when -- Carsen Edwards really helps a lot of our guys, but when we go small and then he goes to the 4, that's when he's been able to play his best. But no, it's a hard thing as a coach because any time you take a guy who's a really good player, then you bring him off the bench, he's one of your key guys, you don't want him to lose confidence from that. But players instill confidence in coaches. I don't know if someone has ever told you that. But you like all your players. It's college; if you didn't like them, they wouldn't be on your team, so you like all your players, but sometimes you've got to make some changes and some adjustments that they don't like that's the best thing for the team, and then in hindsight it's the best thing for them. But not always; sometimes you make mistakes.

Q. Going smaller meant Biggie was playing the 5 almost exclusively. How did he handle it? Seemed like he was getting all his points at the rim drifting away.
MATT PAINTER: Right. Well, I think it was the same for both teams. Him and Colson both had fouls. They both were going at each other, and so they -- I don't think the officials gave either team the right read in terms of what's going to be allowed and what's not going to be allowed, and so those guys were telling them things, and I was like, they're going to call that.

We just wanted to give him the basketball as much as we could, especially when Colson got that third and that fourth foul. And I think they felt the same way, Notre Dame felt the same way. Hey, go at Swanigan, let's get him out of the game, and let's get Colson to get some easy ones and get to the free-throw line. Kind of a war of attrition, and they both kind of hung in there and kept scoring on each other, and we were just fortunate that he missed that last one, and we were able to get that rebound.

Q. What is it that's allowing Carsen to make the impact he's making defensively? You're trusting him a lot more than maybe you were earlier.
MATT PAINTER: Well, I think he's earning this trust. I think that comes, and you have to learn that trust in terms of being able to execute on the offensive end but also do your job on the defensive end, and he plays a couple different slots for us, whether he's playing the 2 and now playing the 1 some because Spike's out, and he's done a great job, and he's been very consistent. But I thought his effort in the second half, the start of the second half, was huge for us. I didn't think we allowed them to really get into the flow that they were in the first half. I thought Farrell was just tremendous in that first half. He kind of did whatever he wanted.

Q. The ability to only have nine turnovers in a fast-paced game like that, what's the key, and is this a potential difference maker for you guys?
MATT PAINTER: You know, we're capable of doing that, but after you play 10 games and you average 15 turnovers, you wonder at times can we play against a quality opponent, but for us it's not the opponent, it's unforced errors. It's little things. It's traveling, it's getting three seconds, getting an offensive foul called, things of that nature. It's within the course of the game of maybe not being fundamentally sound at times, but no, it's a good sign that it happens, but can we consistently do that, I feel as a coach that we can, but we haven't shown that. We have not shown that we can play four games in a row and have nine turnovers in those games, but we've had three or four games where we've had around 10 turnovers. But I think that's going to be the telltale for us, especially going on the road in the Big Ten.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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