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CROSSROADS CLASSIC: BUTLER VS PURDUEDecember 21, 2019LaVall JordanBryce GoldenAaron ThompsonIndianapolis, Indiana Butler - 70, Purdue - 61 LAVALL JORDAN: Obviously playing in this event each year is just something that's great for the state of Indiana, it's great for all four schools and fan bases. We're privileged to be a part of it, and it's four teams out there really well-coached, competing like crazy, and first game and second game, everybody is fighting for their programs, for their teammates and for pride. Proud of our guys for the resiliency. Didn't get a great start. I thought they came out really aggressive, especially on the backboards, and we had to respond coming out of the media, and these guys have done that pretty much all year, where you ask them to do it and they grit their teeth and they respond. So that was something we talked about, and then they came out and we changed the mood of the game. Then we had guys step up. Obviously Kamar gets two fouls and it's a next-man-up, don't-flinch mindset. Bryce Golden, his motor, a lot of credit to him for what he's done with his body over the summer, his commitment to his teammates, to train, to be ready for moments like this, where he had to just go down there and fight and work. They have a really good team. Matt does a great job. Obviously with Haarms out it's different for them, but so much respect for them, and I thought our guys played with the respect that Purdue deserved. Q. Bryce, you had 14 points today, and like Coach said, with Kamar being blitzed in the pick-and-roll and being defended really tightly, how were you able to score? Seemed like they weren't defending you in the mid range. How were you able to score with Haarms out? BRYCE GOLDEN: Yeah, obviously Haarms is a long guy, shot blocker, but obviously we've got Kamar coming off pick-and-rolls that requires a lot of attention from the other team. Get him open, that's my first job, and then I'm always ready as a secondary receiver. They did a good job finding me today. He recognized that. All the guys coming off ball screens recognized that they were up pretty hard, so I was ready to be a secondary receiver, and yeah, that's it. Q. I think they were 8 of 23 in the paint. Seemed like you guys were fighting everything they got in there, especially Trevion. What went well with defending him and keeping the ball out of the post in general? LAVALL JORDAN: Yeah, just mindset. He's low down there, he's improved, he's in much better shape and he's really skilled. I thought Bryce set a tone early just being physical without fouling him and walling him around the basket, and then he throws it up and it's hard to get him off. He's got a good feel for where the ball is going to go. Derrik did an unbelievable job when he was in, just effort from the post, moving around, being a wall. I thought our ball pressure was good so they couldn't get in there as much, something we had talked about in preparation for this one. Q. Is Kamar feeling okay? He kind of walked off gingerly a couple times, which I know he sometimes does anyway, but I was checking to see if physically he's feeling fine. LAVALL JORDAN: No, he's fine. Q. You've talked about balance on this team, but what does it say that you've had such big wins the last two games without him scoring a lot? He's been doing other things but not scoring the ball as much. LAVALL JORDAN: Yeah, I think it's a credit to him and his teammates. This is a group that has a ton of trust and love for each other, and so Kamar is a willing passer. He's going to make the right basketball play. They were really loaded up on him, so Bryce benefitted some, he found cutters at the basket, and he was just willing to move the ball. He trusts the rest of the group and guys trust themselves. You've got to trust your work. We've got guys that live in the gym, put in the work and they're ready for the moment. I think we had 16 assists on 21 made field goals. Turned it over too much in the first half. We had eight and cut it to four in the second half. But 16-21 is pretty good. Q. Aaron playing off of that basically with Kamar being out a lot with foul trouble, what did you do differently to find guys other shots, and even when he was being loaded up on, how did you go about taking advantage of that? AARON THOMPSON: I think we just stuck to our offense. I think we just trusted our offense a little bit more and tried to focus on defense so we could focus on the defensive end and then get stops so we could get out in transition and run, but just trusting the offense and getting the ball more to the sides and making them guard for longer, we knew if we made them guard for longer it would be tougher for them to keep up with the pace of our cuts and stuff like that. Q. LaVall, I know defense is mainly effort so it's hard to say when you're trying very hard all the time, it's probably hard to say when you're better defensively than others, but can you rank this game defensively? How good were you guys on the defensive end? LAVALL JORDAN: Yeah, I thought we were pretty good, and not at the start but the second, kind of the middle portion of the game, right, if you were to place second quarter, third quarter. Then we got up, and when you're down like that, you get a little more freedom to just let the ball fly, so they made a couple threes, and then we missed some switches, but I thought for the most part, guys were locked in. Christian David comes right in the game, gets a block on one end, takes a charge on the other, Jordan Tucker pressures the ball and gets a deflection, gets a steal. I thought for about three-fourths of the game we were pretty good. Bryce Golden is going to be running as soon as we get back because he let him hit the three to get to 60. He let them hit the three to get to 60. Q. Aaron, you had six assists today, and like I said before, they were really blitzing the pick-and-roll and they were doubling on drives, early help side. Having Bryce down low, how was he so physical and how was he able to finish off your passes down low? AARON THOMPSON: I mean, I'm not him, so -- but I mean -- I don't know. He squares his shoulders up. BRYCE GOLDEN: We're both from the same area. We've got connections down there. AARON THOMPSON: Yeah, it's a DMV thing, put it that way. DMV, where we're from. Q. You mentioned Derrik earlier. First of all, how important was he, and what did you see him do well, and you mentioned Jordan being out on the perimeter, obviously he got some switches on Trevion, seemed like he did that well. Seemed like he was able to guard perimeter and post pretty well. What would you say about the importance of each of those guys? LAVALL JORDAN: Yeah, I thought Derrik, I thought he had great minutes when he came in, especially on the defensive end. We kind of subbed him in and played some match-up ball with Williams, and he did a really good job making him catch it away from the basket, and just being physical and seven feet tall -- second half he did a heck of a job just fronting him, not even letting him catch it, so it was really good. And he's moving a lot better, feeling a lot better. He ran the floor, got a lay-up on the run, on the pick-and-roll. Just good to see him moving like he's starting to move, getting back to himself. Jordan was -- I thought he had really solid minutes, as well, especially late against the pressure, him on the ball. Defensively he was locked in, and so he's grown a ton on that end of the court, and it's good to see him go out there against a team like this and have success. Q. LaVall and Aaron both, it looked like one of Purdue's late game tactics was to foul Aaron on purpose sending him to the line. I don't know that I'd seen a Butler opponent try that before. Was there any thought of taking Aaron out? And Aaron, how did you respond to that? I'm not sure that you've seen that. LAVALL JORDAN: No thought. They used to foul Roos Jones, they used to foul Ron Nored. When you're a bulldog, you step up there and you win the game. No thought to taking him out. AARON THOMPSON: I can make free throws late game, I can make free throws any time. They weren't falling early, so I guess they thought that would work that they could still come and foul me. But I'm confident. I put the work in every day, so yeah. Q. LaVall, Butler is 11-1, but I still sense that this team, amongst yourselves, have still identified a lot of growth areas. Probably some people look at Butler's 11-1 record and think are they going to get any better. Is Butler going to get any better? LAVALL JORDAN: Of course. Honestly, I know it sounds like coach-speak, we don't talk a lot about winning and losing. We compete. We're a team, and we're passionate about daily improvement. That's Butler. These guys do it. They go at each other in practice to get better. They get in the gym, they improve themselves, they get in the film room with the coaches. We still haven't put together 40 minutes when we've had opportunities to see opponents, so we're still hungry and hunting for 40 minutes. But obviously there's a lot of resistance when you go against good teams like Purdue. But they have more in them and we're going to challenge them to get it out of them. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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