NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL SEMIFINAL - SAINT PETER'S VS PURDUE

March 25, 2022

Matt Painter

Sasha Stefanovic

Eric Hunter

Trevion Williams

Wells Fargo Center

Purdue Boilermakers

Sweet 16 Postgame Media Conference

Saint Peter's 67, Purdue 64

MATT PAINTER: I want to congratulate Saint Peter's. I thought they were excellent today in their effort. They beat us like they beat the other two teams. They had a strong will, grimy, tough, into you, and Shaheen Holloway has done an unbelievable job there at Saint Peter's. Hats off to those guys and good luck to those guys.

It's really hard when you have seniors that put in so much, and everybody feels this way except one team, and it's hard to put it into words. These guys sacrificed a lot for us to get to this point, and I always talk to them about it. You've got to fight your ass off to get in position so you can do something. Not everybody gets to do something. You've got to fight to be able to do something.

And we fought and got in this position and then obviously we got outplayed today by Saint Peter's. But like I said to start, give them credit. They played well. He's done a fabulous job with his team. I wish I could have coached better, wish we could have played a little bit better. But that's part of competition.

Q. What specifically do you think they did to Jaden defensively, six turnovers, nine points? Was there something they did differently than other teams have done?

SASHA STEFANOVIC: I think they just did a good job of bottling him and trying to force him to make tough passes and tough plays and contested shots. But give them credit, they game planned well and they did a good job.

Q. Eric, why was it so hard to score against them? What were they specifically doing? Were they really taking away?

ERIC HUNTER JR.: I think they were physical with us from the jump. They tried to take stuff away and take us out of our actions and just really be aggressive with us on the perimeter.

Q. Trevion, when the game ended, you kind of went to the corner and put your hands on your knees. What were the thoughts at that point?

TREVION WILLIAMS: I'm honestly still in shock. It just doesn't feel real. I just wish we could have played a little bit better, like Coach said. Man, you've got to give them their respect. That's a real team. If you don't respect them, you'll be outplayed kind of like we did today.

Man, like I said, I'm still in shock. Obviously we all expected to go further, but just didn't go our way.

Q. Trevion, there was a point there fairly late in the second half where you just kind of took over. Could you describe your mindset at that point and what you thought after you got done? I think you guys were up four after being down four.

TREVION WILLIAMS: Man, I immediately thought about North Texas. It was a similar situation. We got down against them, and I remember not being able -- my shots not falling, not being able to contribute the way I wanted to.

Like I said, this was kind of a similar situation, and I just wanted to kind of be patient with myself and understand that every possession matters. It was definitely a similar situation, but I just, like I said, remember how that felt, and I wanted to do anything to help my teammates.

Q. Sasha, on that ending and the finality of it all, can you tell us your thoughts, what was going on in the final few seconds, from there to now?

SASHA STEFANOVIC: I mean, honestly like my mind is blank right now. I can't recall exactly what happened. They made plays down the stretch, and we made some fouls, unnecessarily fouls, and it cost us. Credit to them, they made their free throws and executed down the stretch and played good defense.

Q. Sasha, 11 points in the first half, really only took three shots in the second half. Just not getting enough looks or --

SASHA STEFANOVIC: I mean, I don't know. I thought I had three good looks in the second half, and I just didn't make them. Those are things you're going to replay in your mind all the time, what if I made a couple more. It is what it is, you know.

Q. I know you mentioned the respect thing when it came to North Texas. Coach yesterday talked about whoever has the most competitive spirit is going to win this game. Did you feel like the respect factor was there and did you feel like the competitive spirit factor was lacking from the beginning?

TREVION WILLIAMS: I mean, like I said, I'm still in shock, honestly. I wish we could have came out with a little more energy. I know we talked about respecting that team, and we talked about treating them like the best team in the tournament. I don't think everybody bought into that. They just played harder than us. They made their free throws. They got calls.

Obviously being away -- they're right -- not far from here, so they got a lot of calls their way. But you've just got to be 10 points better. There's a lot of things we could have done differently to kind of prevent that. Like I said, I just wish we would have came in and jumped right on them from the jump.

Q. I know you guys are all feeling pretty dejected right now, but I'm wondering if it makes a difference to go out of the tournament to the Cinderella or if that has an impact at all on how you're feeling.

SASHA STEFANOVIC: No, not really. I mean, they're a good team. Like they earned their way to the Elite 8. Cinderella or not, they earned it.

15 seed, who cares. They're good. They're a good team. They can beat anybody. So no, it doesn't really make a difference to be honest. It still sucks.

Q. Coach Painter, just when it looked like Trevion Williams was about to get in that rhythm, scored eight straight points or something, what happened? What type of adjustments did they make defensively to stop your inside game?

MATT PAINTER: Yeah, we didn't probe the defense like we should. They went to a zone like he does in that last four or five minutes. He did it against Kentucky, he did it against Murray State. And we had some things that we had worked on to go to. We got it to him low and then he got fouled one time. The other time we didn't execute. The other time -- I know I keep saying that, but I'm trying to remember it in my head in sequence.

Jaden Ivey got in there and got us a good three in the corner that we just missed and then we got the rebounds. He does a really good job of mixing and going to that -- it's not really a zone, it's just camouflaging as a zone and they're going to match up and go to a man. We still wanted to get the ball in there, but we had to keep probing the defense.

I thought Jaden made some really good passes in that stretch. Getting him the ball, we got him the ball deep there. We wanted to keep coming to it, they tried to bottle us and take that away. And with that we got a really good corner three in front of our bench that was wide open. We got another corner three away from us that was wide open. Like Sasha talked about, the looks he got in that stretch, two were pretty good.

When you get good shots and you just don't knock them down, as a coach you try to stay process based, but I don't want to take anything away from Saint Peter's or Coach Holloway. He did a fabulous job like he's done all tournament.

Q. Between you and Coach Katie, this program has had so many close calls over the years. To what extent does that weigh on you right now in moments like this?

MATT PAINTER: Yeah, it weighs on you. Obviously we worked hard to have to win two games to get here. We were in the Elite 8 three years ago. Obviously we didn't have a tournament two years ago.

It eats at you, man. Like you work hard to do things and to work and represent your school and to put yourself in a position to do well. It's so hard to get in position to do well, and that's kind of been -- like these guys won 29 games and then you feel awful. We put ourselves in a position to win a Big Ten championship and we didn't. We put ourselves in a position to win the championship game of the tournament, we didn't. You get to this point right here and you don't move forward, but it's also -- anybody can have a good team.

We have a good program. Our guys graduate, we're successful, we have the most Big Ten championships of any school in the Big Ten. We just haven't gotten over that hurdle. We just haven't gotten that push to where we haven't been to a Final Four in 42 years. So yeah, I think about it all the time, but it's not going to stop me from driving to get here and get back in this position again and try to get over that hurdle. That's what our players deserve and our fans deserve. It's part of competition. It's a very, very competitive world.

Q. Do you have any theories as to why this team struggled the way it did to take care of the basketball and really value possessions, things you've always really emphasized?

MATT PAINTER: Yeah, you don't like to put a label on your group. You like to grow through things and make weaknesses strengths. We've proven if we don't turn the ball over we can beat anybody in the country. This was my statement. And if we turn the ball over, we can get beat by anybody in the country outside of probably playing on our home court. We can still probably turn the ball over and get somebody beat at home. That's just the way we are.

When we turned the ball over 10 times at Indiana in the first half and then they make a shot to beat us at the end, we go on a six-game winning streak in the conference, and then it rears its ugly head again. That's what I always talk to our guys about, keeping things simple.

One of the first things I talked about going out to our guys today is passing and catching. Think about that. We've got to do a good job passing and catching, and like a kid who's getting recruited has no idea when they get into it like a buzz saw defense like that right there. But we've got teams in our league that play like that all the time, so it's not like we've never seen that. Once again, don't take anything away from them. They did it. They did the work. They're the one that affected us. So we have those turnovers, and it rears its ugly head again.

We have that number -- we get around that 15 number, that's trouble for us. We've got to outscore you a little bit. Now, we've taken away -- we have such a good offensive rebound percentage, we have such a good field goal percentage for the whole season, so if you let us shoot the basketball and we get a good shot, we've got a good percentage. But we've also got a good offensive rebound possession, but if you turn it over and you're running the other way -- that's been a struggle. We've worked on it, man, we've put in a lot of time and we've proven we can be good at it, but we weren't as consistent as we needed to be.

Q. It seemed like they did a really good job with Zach in the post, especially like getting hands on balls before his moves and things like that. I'm sure that wasn't a surprise to you, but how they executed that, was that troublesome for you, that you couldn't do more?

MATT PAINTER: Yes. Yeah. We wanted to get him deeper. They did a good job of getting him out a couple times and really fighting to their credit. And once he's not as deep, he has to be careful on his dribble. So I thought he made a couple good simple passes there, but then he obviously struggled kind of passing and catching, kind of collected himself. He's a very unique player, but he's got to stay fundamentally sound in his moves and what he does and how he passes, and they bothered him.

We feel like it's a huge weapon for us and people don't see that all the time. So if he can just play in the game and be productive and not get there, he's going to foul some people out, he's going to score the ball, he's going to go to the free-throw line. And it got flipped on us a little bit there because we didn't take care of it.

Q. It seemed like Saint Peter's was fine taking a lot of those mid-range twos. Do you think it had anything to do with that drop coverage? Is that something you're fine letting happen from an efficiency standpoint?

MATT PAINTER: Yeah, they don't shoot a great percentage on their runners and their floaters and stuff, but if you let them get too deep, they're going to make those. And that's really what we wanted to do is really step out a couple steps, then get into our drop, not being a complete drop with it. I know it didn't look that way a couple times at the end, but we really talked about that one to two step out, get them going east and west, and then drop back so they're not getting those lobs in there.

No, when you play numbers and you play percentages, getting them away -- the one thing that they get a lot of is lay-ups. I know it's a profound statement or whatever. You've got to eliminate their lay-ups. We didn't do a good job with that. If you watch them play Kentucky, you watch them play Murray State, they get lay-ups whether those are put-backs or drives or dump-downs. So we really wanted the ball to go out, like Dasher with the threes. He's not a three-point shooter. It's not the end of the world for us. It's a huge basket at that time, but we wanted to keep the ball out of the paint.

When you look at other guys like Edert, he's 1 for 3. You look at Banks, he's 0 for 4. They're 6 for 21 so we were able to get that at that point. Our issue at the end if you want to grab something is quit fouling people. That's the game. Like now can they go make plays like they did before? You go watch the end of the Kentucky game, they're making play after play after play. Do they go and make those plays? Yeah, they sure could, they could make those plays. But don't put good free-throw shooters -- we foul them off the ball twice, we foul on a three-point play, we dive on a guy at the end. That's the game, like right there.

Now, they still could have won the game if we don't foul them because they've got to be able to make those plays. But that's Purdue beating Purdue right there. Those are the things that you'd like to have back because you outrebound somebody, you turn the ball over too much. You take care of that basketball and you don't foul, we're a lot happier at this press conference.

Q. You sat Jaden the last 3:45 of the first half. Was that maybe trying to settle him down a little bit?

MATT PAINTER: Yes, just trying to get him to -- he comes and he goes sometimes, and like he wants to do well. He's a really talented guy and just trying to get him to calm down, watch the game a little bit from there and settle down, just make simple decisions and just attack in space. But yeah, that's all it was. Just trying to get him to kind of settle into the game.

It's coming off a game at Texas where he didn't shoot in the first half, and then he was still making really good plays. Even though he didn't shoot, he was still making plays at that time, and like he was getting a little frustrated, so that's why we did it.

Q. On Ivey, do you look at today as they did a really good job defensively on him or that maybe he just didn't play the way he can play?

MATT PAINTER: Both. Both. The one thing that happens when you ask somebody a question like this, especially they haven't watched tape yet, it's your perspective, and you don't want your perspective to take anything away from another team or another coach. So that's why they did a great job. Like that needs to be said first and foremost.

But this was something for us when like they didn't do anything that we haven't seen before. He just had to slow down a little bit, and really talented guys -- he had a fabulous year for us. He was an All-American. But you're going to get a lot of attention.

But give credit to Saint Peter's. They did a great job.

Q. I know it's probably hard to answer it right now fresh off the game, but you mentioned having to get over that hurdle to get to the Final Four and you won't stop working. What do you have to do as a coach for that to happen? What's that look like?

MATT PAINTER: Don't foul at the end. I mean, for this game you always dive into the game that you lost. Like don't turn the basketball over. Get people to understand that piece of it. We never really got to that point where that number would get there. We get beat in the Big Ten Tournament, our turnover number is high. We go to Michigan State, second or third game, it comes down to the wire, our turnover number is high. We get beat by Saint Peter's, our turnover number is high. Those games in between that we won, the turnover number is low.

So each team is a little bit different, but you're wasting the ability -- we rebounded the basketball. How many did we out-rebound them by? That's normal for us. If you're going to rebound like that and people can't handle you there and you can take care of the basketball and you can just dominate the possession more and you've got the third-best field goal percentage in the country. But each team is a little bit different in things. You've just got to keep working. It's not one thing.

Now you lose some personnel, and so like now you've got to keep recruiting. But I'm excited. I mean, I feel bad for these guys here, but I like the guys that return on our team, I like the guys sitting out -- we've got guys that are sitting out that can play and we've got guys that are coming. So not everybody in the country can sit there -- we're the only team in the Sweet 16 that didn't take a transfer. Doesn't mean that we won't, but we've been able to recruit, we've been able to evaluate, we've been able to develop, and we've been able to have good teams.

But like you said, it's that fine line, man, when you've got to get in position and get over that threshold. I don't think it's one thing. It's just collectively being just a little bit better.