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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: BOSTON

March 22, 2018

Matt Painter

Boston, Massachusetts

THE MODERATOR: We're joined at the dais by Head Coach Matt Painter of Purdue University. Welcome to Boston. Congratulations on advancing. If you would give us your thoughts on advancing in the Tournament and your matchup with Texas Tech.

MATT PAINTER: Thank you. We're obviously excited to play. Our guys were able to grind out a victory against Butler in that second round. We know we face a tough team in Texas Tech. It's very athletic, very versatile, got a lot of different pieces, got a lot of guys who can hurt you in a lot of different ways. We know we have our hands full with them and just looking forward to the challenge.

Q. Matt, Isaac was just saying that he hopes to play, even if it's limited minutes tomorrow. What's your feelings on that and are you confident that the brace is going to get approved?
MATT PAINTER: Yeah, he didn't practice the last two days. So I don't see him playing. Until he can practice and show me he can shoot a right-handed free-throw and get a rebound with two hands. In the last two days he hasn't practiced. So I don't see it.

Q. Matt, this region has like almost all the seeds that you would think would be in a regional -- a 1, 2, 3, and a 5. What is it -- I know you're obviously focused on you and your opponent, but do you think there's anything these teams have in common that allowed people to avoid the upset that's other teams fell prey to?
MATT PAINTER: No, not really. I think we've all been in some close games. Obviously, we were in a close game where Butler could be in this position very easily. I know Texas Tech has had two close games in theirs since I looked at them on film and been able to watch them. So I think it just comes down to matchups more than seeds. And sometimes what you've earned as a seed, and then you have to play somebody. It's just on that particular day.

You know, I think if we all played these games in best-of-five series or best-of-seven series, I don't think you'd see as many so-called upsets, but when you get on a neutral court and there's so much parity, I think you'll see a region like this where you have more higher seeds, and you'll see another region where you'll see more upsets. It's just kind of part of March Madness.

Q. Brad Stevens made it clear he wasn't rooting for you in the last game, but he says you're one of his closest coaching friends. Can you guys talk about that relationship going back to Southern Illinois and Butler and the recruiting trail.
MATT PAINTER: Right. Obviously, I've known Brad for a long time just from being in coaching, and a lot of people don't realize in the college game you sit and watch a lot of people, and you get stuck next to people and talking. So you form friendships. Obviously, Brad did an excellent job at Butler, not just as a head coach, but also as an assistant coach, and that's where you spend a lot of time as assistant coaches talking and kind of conversing, but you also don't like to give up a lot while you're recruiting somebody -- who you like, who you want, why you like them, things like that. But just being able to pick somebody's brain like that and all the successes that he's had.

Obviously, there's a lot of consistency, I think, with the Purdue program and the Butler program through the years in terms of how we kind of do business and how we go about it and the type of kids that you look for in your program.

Q. Jacquil Taylor, the local stud here for you guys this weekend. What can you guys say about him as a player this season, and his role stepping up in Isaac's absence? What's it been like, from your perspective, watching him get all excited being able to come back home?
MATT PAINTER: He's been great. He really played well this past summer in the World University Games in Taiwan. He had the best rebounds per minutes in those games. He's been hurt. Three out of the past five years going back to high school, he's missed the whole season with three separate injuries. So it's been very frustrating for him. And then he misses the whole month of October after he had a great summer because of his injury.

Then Matt Haarms really steps up and plays well, and he gets out of the rotation. That's frustrating for a player who's put in that kind of time and had to sit out. So for him to get this kind of opportunity is a silver lining because you feel terrible for Isaac. He's worked really hard for this moment, and now it's taken away from him because of an injury. There's nothing you can do about it. His friend Jacquil has worked hard and stayed positive, and now he's in for us, and I thought he did a great job in the game against Butler.

Q. When we were talking to Coach Beard earlier this week, we brought up a couple of years ago when he was at Arkansas-Little Rock, and he said you're a completely different team. How are you guys different than two years ago whenever you lost to them?
MATT PAINTER: We were a lot bigger then in terms of who we started and who we played. I think that was it. We were a team that really struggled with pressure, and we struggled with people who pressed us. The thing that we did right after that season, because some of the struggles we had against Little Rock late in that game were struggles we had all season. We would get a ten-point lead. Someone would press us, and then a circus would start. And so then it would go down to the wire, whether we won or lost those games. It's almost like an omen when we had a ten-point lead, and that should be a good thing, and it wasn't for that particular team.

So I just thought the best thing to do was go out and play the best pressing team for a scrimmage that we could, and that's why we've scrimmaged West Virginia the last two years. So we know that his teams play so hard at West Virginia. They press, and they come at you. So that's been really good for us.

But we're also a smaller team and more of a guard-oriented team than we have been. Vince Edwards is our 4. So he gives us an extra ball handler. We start three guards. We start two smaller guards that one's a point, one's kind of a point kind of combo-type guy, and then Dakota Mathias can really handle the ball and pass the basketball.

It really made us work on it more. We really didn't have the personnel for that then, and now we have the personnel there. With all that being said, now we're not as good at rebounding. So you don't get all your eggs in one basket. There's always a give and take with things.

With that being said, like I was just really impressed with Little Rock and how hard they played. You see those same traits on this Texas Tech team.

Q. Matt, Chris said that, even with the differences and different personnel and teams, that he did go back and watch the tape of that game, and he thought maybe you would as well just because if you played somebody, you have. Did you? What can you pull from it?
MATT PAINTER: I didn't go back and watch. Sometimes you don't like to live those bad dreams. But our assistants went and watched it and kind of talked about it and talked about some things. It was definitely one of those moments that you'll never forget as a coach. He'll never forget it on a positive side, and I'll never forget it on a negative side.

Q. Matt, from a practical and a psychological impact, how important was it for you guys to play a team like Butler and have that kind of a matchup for Matt stepping in for Isaac? And how can that pay benefits, both tomorrow night and further that you go?
MATT PAINTER: I think it benefits you just to be sure of yourself. I think a lot of times when you get put into a role -- and I think the only thing that's different for him is just starting in the game. I think you saw that at the beginning of the game. He missed his first two free throws. He misses his first couple shots. And then he settled into the game, and he's really good. Matt's really helped us on the defensive end, and I think he's going to grow into a good offensive player for us, but he still doesn't get a lot of reps. He doesn't get the ball much when he's in. Then he got the ball in that game. He did a good job of making himself available on diving on some ball screens.

Matt played 29 minutes in that game, and he played 27 minutes in the first time when we played against Butler. I think that's something that gets lost with us is, Isaac isn't a 30-minute guy. We play half the game without him when he's healthy. He's a guy, 300 pounds, he needs some of those breaks. He needs to play less to get more production from him. So Matt's played a lot for us this season. I think that's really helped us.

I also think, when Vince Edwards went down for two games late in the year, very similar to some of the things Texas Tech has been through, I think it makes you stronger because you have to play more people. Grady Eifert had to play during that time, and I think it really helped him and really helped our team and just the overall confidence of some of those guys coming off the bench.

Q. Coach, you and Pat Knight have a relationship together. I wonder with that relationship and the fact that Chris was on his staff, have you ever crossed paths and have any stories about Coach Beard?
MATT PAINTER: Not any stories, I wouldn't say. Obviously, when Coach Beard was Coach Knight's assistant, obviously, we ran into him a lot because of our friendship. I played AAU basketball with Pat Knight and our AAU team was out of Bloomington. I was from the northern part of Indiana, so I stayed there. I would stay at Pat's house 30 years ago. So our friendship has just kind of grown from there.

Q. Just the original story, on the list of things that are really difficult for a coach to do, where does telling a player he just can't play, where does that rank?
MATT PAINTER: It's hard. The one thing that you do in a successful program is everybody's going to have to make sacrifices, and the one thing you jump out, whether it's minutes or shots, you know, you've got to do what's best for the team. And then after the season, whether a guy wants to go pro or whether he's weighing his options, you do what's best for the individual. In this situation, like if Isaac could do it, if it was on his non-shooting hand, maybe you could think some things through, if you could still make a free throw, he could still go to his jump hook, which is his best move.

Now with this, he can't go to his best move. Can he catch the basketball? Can he make a free throw? Can he get a two-handed rebound? Those answers have been no from what I've seen. And the last couple of days of practice, he hasn't practiced or tried to do it, it just kind of sends the same thing.

We have the best brace we possibly could have. That's going to be the best. Now if some other brace gets cleared, it's not going to be quite as good, but he couldn't do those things with the best brace.

So it's very difficult in those situations, but you also have to be a truth teller. That's your job as a coach. You've got to be diplomatic about it because it's really hard. You play 130 games to get to your senior year for this moment, but you also have to do -- as a coach, you've got to do what's best for your team.

Q. After the Hummel, Johnson, and Moore teams, what's been the key to rebuilding this program to get to this point?
MATT PAINTER: I think making sure you get guys that fit you in terms of guys that can dribble, pass, and shoot. When you look at those four guys that start for us, outside of Haas, all of them shoot 40 percent, or around there, from three, and all of them shoot 80 percent. Ryan Cline is the same way. His numbers aren't as high because he doesn't play as many minutes, but he's a really good player.

So being able to get those guys -- we've been able to get really good size in A.J. Hammons and Caleb Swanigan, Isaac Haas. Matt Haarms is the next guy along those lines. We've got a couple of young guys coming that are pretty good players. But being able to get that balance of guys that are about winning, that are about competing. Because it's hard. It's hard to get people to sacrifice. But when you've got skilled guys that are intelligent, it's fun. It's fun when you don't have a weak sister out there offensively, where they can really help off of somebody. So when we've had teams like that, we've been more successful.

Q. What impresses you about Tech's perimeter defense?
MATT PAINTER: I just think their ability to stay with it in terms of sustainability. Like you get guys to play hard in spurts. You get guys to play hard in a certain stretch. They play hard for 40 minutes. They really get into the basketball. You can see when maybe like after a time-out, you hear about coaches, about being able to draw up plays, and after time-outs you've got to be prepared for things. It seems like after some time-outs, especially late in the game, they put themselves in position. They really ramp their defense up.

But just their overall ability to do it as a whole. It's not like a couple guys can guard and a couple guys can't. They're all so versatile, and they all play hard, and they all get after it. They get production from a lot of people. You'll see a guy averaging five points, and you look at him on tape, and you're like, man, he's a really good player. He can get after it. That's what you have to do. You have to be able to get those guys coming off your bench to be able to sacrifice, but they really help you win.

So they don't lose a lot in my opinion. Culver and Evans can score a little better than some of those guys. But on a given night, Stevenson's dangerous. You can't leave him there. Gray is a guy that scored more. Zach Smith has scored more before. So these guys have sacrificed, and if Zach and Keenan Evans wouldn't have had some injuries, they probably would have had two or three fewer losses. I really believe it.

So this is their team, and they're healthy. The way they can come at you on the defensive level, you have to be efficient offensively. When they make mistakes, you've got to make them pay because they don't make a lot of them.

Q. Matt, I know you touched on Isaac and the elbow earlier. Is there any chance that he -- if you guys survive this weekend or just get to Sunday, is there any chance he could get re-evaluated, or is he done for the year?
MATT PAINTER: I would think he's done. To me, it's the eye test. It's going out and watching him. He can go practice today if he wants, and I can evaluate him. But if he doesn't practice, nothing changes, right? No matter what like I say or you say or he says especially, he fractured his elbow. You know what I mean? So if you fractured your elbow and you can't shoot a free throw, I don't know how it changes in two days.

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