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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: DETROITMarch 15, 2018Matt PainterVincent EdwardsIsaac HaasDetroit, Michigan THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Purdue student-athletes Isaac Haas and Vincent Edwards and Coach Painter. Q. How did you spend your past eight or nine days without playing? And I know you haven't played yet, but do you feel refreshed and was it a benefit do you think at this point? ISAAC HAAS: I think we feel refreshed. Did a little light shooting getting up and down the floor a little bit. Nothing too serious, just letting our legs get back under us, letting our bodies get rejuvenated, doing the things we need to do, getting treatment, things like that. So I feel like everybody's on the right track. Our minds are fresh, our bodies are fresh. So we're ready to go into the tournament with a sound body. Q. I think the Big Ten schedule was rough on a lot of people, nonstop the way it went through February. Did you feel you needed that chance to kind of regroup and get healthy again? VINCENT EDWARDS: I mean, yeah, I think it was good for us not just physically but mentally as well to get them all out of the way and being able to have this week that we've had to kind of rest. It's the first for us, but we do some nagging injuries that some of us had, and little things like that allowed us to get back in and correct some mistakes that we made throughout the tournament and also get our bodies ready. Q. Vince, how are you physically now, and do you have some of that old explosiveness back after these two weeks? VINCENT EDWARDS: For sure. It helps to have had that week off, definitely been doing a lot more treatment with our guy Chad, the trainer. And it's been great to actually be able to see some of that explosiveness come back. The last couple of practices have been really good. So been moving a lot better. Q. You were in a position to be ranked in the top 10 all year. You didn't have a conference championship regular season or tournament to show for it. How much of a motivation is that now to prove yourself going forward? ISAAC HAAS: I think it's a big motivation. Obviously disappointing to not win your conference or your tourney. But I felt we played really well throughout the majority of the season. But we had a few bad stretches, but it's just a matter of learning and improving. I think going into this tournament we're going to have to really get used to each other on the court again and -- because we haven't played in a while. But at the same time we've been going hard in practice recently and so I'm sure that we'll be fine. Q. Vince, Grady Eifert could you talk about his development from the time he joined the program to today and how he's helped you improve, because I would assume you go against him every day in practice? VINCENT EDWARDS: Oh yeah, Grady has been great. First of all, he should be playing tight end for Purdue, not a power forward. But Grady has been good for us. Always came in with the work ethic. He works hard, never complained and just goes hard. I mean, everything he's gotten, with me being hurt and him starting, I think he deserved that for how hard he's played and just his approach to everyday life in practice. He's always coming in ready, he's not complaining, not doing anything of that nature, just comes ready to work. So going against him every day has definitely pushed me, being physical and all those sorts of things. So gotta give him a lot of credit for that. Q. For both of you, with the condensed schedule you played in the Big Ten, could that be an advantage if things go well and you hopefully have a series of one-day turnarounds? The first part of the question. And what was the most fun or non-basketball thing you did during the break that maybe you didn't get a chance to if you didn't have so much time off? ISAAC HAAS: I think, yeah, it is an advantage at some point. When you're going throughout the conference season, it kind of gets daunting on you, you have so many games in a row and you start so early. But at the same time when you get into this latter part, you realize this actually is going to help you get back on the right track in terms of your body and your mind, because it wears down on you throughout the season. But I would say personally the most fun thing for us was the Dave & Busters trip we had as a team. We all went to Indy and we all just played the games and stuff and just ate dinner. And it was a really fun time. Q. Obviously for Fullerton one of the things they do really well is they shoot a ton of free throws. How important is it for you guys to stay out of foul trouble? VINCENT EDWARDS: That's going to be huge after watching film with them and seeing how they really get into putting their players into position to score a lot of isos and ball screen, things of that nature. They do a good job of going to get their own baskets at the same time. So just have to do a good job of staying down, keeping our hands out, making them score over the length. Can't worry about how the game is going to be officiated. We've just got to go out there and play. Q. Vince, the Big Ten has been disregarded for a lot of years as just a top-heavy conference, four teams in the tournament. What does that mean to you? And how important is it for all the teams in this conference to win this week? VINCENT EDWARDS: It always happens, like you said, it's always been disregarded or top-heavy. And somehow we always end up with at least a team or two somewhere in the Elite Eight or Sweet 16. It speaks for itself in that nature. We're always being overlooked and I don't really understand why. But I mean it is what it is. Everybody in the country, whoever does their conferences thinks their conference is the best conference, and of course we're going to think we're the best conference regardless. But we're just going to come out and every Big Ten team is going to try to represent and play their hardest. ISAAC HAAS: Just to piggyback off what he said, there's a lot of really good teams everywhere. I felt like Nebraska and Penn State played really well towards the end of the season, and I felt like they deserved it as well. But obviously the committee didn't think so. That's how the Big Ten is, that's a tough conference, no matter how you look at it. All the teams that are at the bottom, even Rutgers, those guys play hard. They really give a lot of credit to our conference as a whole. And it just makes it tough towards the latter part of the season for the decision makers like the NCAA to choose who gets in or who doesn't. Q. Watching the tournament over the year and experiencing the tournament, when a 2, 3 or 4 seed struggles with the lower seeded team in the first round, why do you think -- what do you think the reason is usually? Is it looking past them or is it maybe the teams are more even than we think? VINCENT EDWARDS: I think it's really because sometimes that 2, 3, 4 seed is not as happy to be there as that 15 or 16 seed. Because they earned their way there. Coach Painter preaches everybody earned their way there, so why can't we just be as excited. There's no guarantee you're going to be in the NCAA Tournament. If you know you're a team that's going to make it, why can't you be excited even if you're a 2, 3, 4, or even a 1 seed? I think that's what it is in a lot of the cases, I think that team is just more excited to be here. Q. Compared to a lot of the teams in this tournament, you guys are experienced or really old. What kind of advantage does that give you having gone through it and losing games in the past as a less experienced team? VINCENT EDWARDS: We have to let that show, the experience part of it and us having four seniors that start, which you don't see normally in today's game. We've just got to let that show. We've got to stay together and play together. I think that's our biggest thing. We can't really get worried about what's going on. We've been through adversity. We've been through any type of situation that you can just about think of, besides, of course, getting to an Elite Eight or a Final Four. So when it comes to us and having that experience, we've got to stick together, stay together and we just gotta know what to do in certain situations. Q. Do you think the Big Ten was undervalued in terms of the seeding? And do you root for the other Big Ten teams obviously when they're not playing you? Potentially you could all meet somewhere down the line with a lot on the line. So your thoughts on that? ISAAC HAAS: Yeah, I root for the other Big Ten teams. I think it speaks a lot about our conference when they do well. You know you played against those guys, you make friends with some of those guys, so you want them to do well as a coinciding event. I mean that's just my opinion. VINCENT EDWARDS: I would say the same. Like I said, make some friends with some of the guys on other teams. You go to Big Ten media day, you meet with a lot of guys, you sit there and you talk just like any conference does at the beginning of the year. So you want to root for each other, you gotta stick together at some point. Then when you meet down the road it's about bragging rights. That's the most fun part of it. Q. You talked about being happy to be here, the lower seeds are. And obviously you guys have much bigger goals than just getting to the NCAA Tournament. How do you balance focusing on this one game with looking ahead where you want to go? VINCENT EDWARDS: That's the story of it. It's always going to be that way. You preach it in the season. You preach it before the game. You can't look past what other opponent whether you and that opponent you're going to play later in the season, you're going to be neck and neck. But you're worrying about what they're doing; why can't you just worry about yourself and what you need to take care of? I think that's our main focus, well, we've got to have -- we have to worry about what is in front of us and what we can control. We can't control who else loses. This tournament will go from 64 to 32 or closer to 16, going into the next weekend. But we have to take care of our opponents first. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. We'll start with an opening statement from Coach Painter and then open the floor to questions. COACH PAINTER: Really excited to be here. I know our guys are really looking forward to it, being able to play in Detroit. We've worked really hard to get to this point and very grateful to get a 2 seed. Obviously we've earned our way into the tournament like everybody else and had a lot of experiences with this group in the NCAA Tournament. We've had a lot of highs, a lot of lows. So just trying to dig into Cal State Fullerton and be prepared for them. I think that's the most important thing, just to keep your focus on your next opponent and go out there and not beat yourself. I think a lot of times you lock into your opponent but the most important team is your team. And so not beating yourself, taking care of the basketball, executing on the offensive end and being stingy defensively are so important. Like I said earlier, just really looking forward to this opportunity of competing tomorrow. Q. Three and a half, four, four and a half hours away, something like that, give or take. Is that an advantage as opposed to having to get on a plane and fly and travel long distance? COACH PAINTER: I don't think so. I don't think it's a disadvantage either. I think it's just one of those things when you have a lot of experiences with your team, whether you're flying on a bus or playing internationally or whatever -- by the time you've become who you are at the end of the year, there's a lot of experiences that go into it, especially with this group right here and what we've been able to do, really kind of starting our journey in June, preparing for international play and then getting ourselves ready for this season. Q. What impresses you the most about Cal State Fullerton, and also what's it been like handling that interim between the Big Ten Tournament and now? It's kind of a great unknown as far as how that's going to affect your team. What did you do to handle that? COACH PAINTER: I think the thing that impresses me the most about Cal State Fullerton is obviously their ability to play the three days in a row in tight games. Really the last game got away from their opponent the most. The other games were very, very close. And they were very different type of games. UC Davis game in the 50s. Their first game against Long Beach State was in the 70s. And then at the end they push out the championship game, being able to win. They have good guard play. They can break you down. They can make plays for their teammates. They can make plays for themselves. They're stingy on defense. They do a good job of down and ball screens and just kind of getting into the basketball. But they have two really good guards. I think Rowe gives them that third score. I think a lot of times when you get at that mid level you get a couple guards. But do you have that center or combo forward that can really help with that? I think he gives them that third scorer and makes it really difficult for teams to just lock in on those two guards. Q. And the Big Ten? COACH PAINTER: I've only answered it 500 times. So I don't think it's that big of a deal. We took a couple days off. We practiced a couple days. You want to have your team on edge but you also don't want to go full bore and then somebody gets hurt. The last thing you want to do is come in here and be shorthanded. You want to have all your guys healthy and be ready. So we took off three total days. Another day we had just a walk-through and so the other days we practiced for about an hour, hour 15 minutes. Q. We talked about this in New York, but just talk about Vincent Edwards and how much did that two weeks, do you think, help him maybe in recovery? COACH PAINTER: I think it's going to help him a lot. He sprained his ankle a month ago. This isn't something that happened last week for him now. He's been able to play four games. He's been able to practice. He's been able to take days off, get a lot of treatment. So we're expecting big things from him. Q. Isaac talked about a team trip to Dave & Busters, whose idea was that, and did you participate in that? COACH PAINTER: It was not my idea and I did not participate. I did not go with them. I don't know whose idea it was, to be honest with you. Q. You have seniors and some of the other prominent teams have really gone a long way with seniors this year. When you recruit a player, what's it like to hit that sweet spot between a guy who might not be good enough to go to the pros but might be able to help you for four years, how tricky a process is it to identify a player like that? COACH PAINTER: You don't know, it's all guesswork. They all have that dream of wanting to play. Normally when you get a guy that stays four years, we've been able to do it and develop guys in four years and make the NBA and play. So I think that ultimately is the best thing because you know you get your degree and you go to the NBA. So you have that to fall back on. That's what it's all about. But you're reading into a lot of things. You're trying to help them. You're trying to develop them, trying to get them better. But when they're 15, 16, 17 years old, there's a lot of uncertainty. You just don't know. Obviously somebody like Isaac, who has massive physical skills, other guys have to develop because they're like everybody else, they're 6'4", 6'6", 6'7" in that world and you have to be versatile, have to be able to have guard skills. The game now, if you're versatile and you can guard a lot of different positions and play a lot of different positions, you know, it really helps you. But we really tried to search out outside of our size. We've had great size but the guys that haven't played the post for us, just trying to get guys that can dribble, pass and shoot that are competitive, that are about winning, I think sometimes that gets lost in recruiting. We all get judged, whether you're a player, you're a coach, even administrators, you get judged on winning, do your programs win? And that's so important. Q. This has been an odd nine months for you because of the international trip. And that international trip was different than most international trips because of the intensity and representing your country and all that. Where is your team mentally, and did you manage this nine months differently to make sure your guys are fresh on March 15th and not just worn down? COACH PAINTER: Right. We did manage it differently. We didn't do any conditioning in the fall when we got back from our trip. We missed the first week of school and so when we got back from that we had about a month, whereas 10 years ago you would have had about six weeks starting on October 15th. Now you start at the end of September. So we did some individual workouts. We did things, obviously, in the weight room. But we didn't do any conditioning. I would say as it goes on, our practices haven't been as long. We've taken a couple extra days off here and there. But for the most part I think it's being smart no matter if you go on that trip or not. I think people always say things can get long. And I understand that in theory. But in reality, if we didn't go on that trip, we still would be playing basketball somewhere. We'd still be working on our game. We'd still be doing things. I think the travel sometimes, for young guys that aren't used to it, I think that can kind of wear on them a little bit. But I don't think in the long run, if you're a basketball player and you worked really hard, now you've got to this point, it's pretty exciting; you're going go out there and lay it on the line. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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