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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2008Chris KramerE'Twaun MooreMatt PainterINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA THE MODERATOR: Coach, we'll ask you to please make a brief opening comment or two and then we'll take questions for the players and finish up with questions for you. COACH PAINTER: I felt that this game was going to be one of those grinders and become a possession game. I thought we did a pretty good job of putting ourselves into a position to win the game. To go into overtime, they made a couple more plays than we did. It's one of those things where you have to close it out when you have a two-possession lead, you have the balls in a couple situations. They made a couple of plays and you have to give Illinois credit. And we've talked about it all year with some of our guys. We've got some guys, couple of them up here that have been pretty special for us and made huge plays. We had guys make plays tonight, but I think Demetri McCamey was the guy special tonight. He was 6-for-6 from 3, just made big shot after big shot, especially when they were down in that position. That's the difference. When it got into overtime, we had some nice looks at the baskets, we had some layups and free throws and different things, and the ball just didn't go in for us. Sometimes that happens in this game. And it's unfortunate for us, but you have to give Illinois credit. I thought they played very hard and they were very efficient especially in the overtime and in regulation, with some of their back cuts for layups. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for the two Purdue players. Q. Chris, how are you feeling? And what would you think of kind of your performance in the overtime when you had to switch to McCamey there? CHRIS KRAMER: My body is sore, but so is everybody else's. We played 30 some games this season. Everybody's sore. You just gotta play through it. I'm going to put that on myself. I should have played better defense in the regulation and overtime. I was defensive player of the year for a reason. I can't let that stuff happen. Q. Can you tell us what happened on that travel call right at the end of regulation? I mean, was there -- did you fumble the ball or what happened? CHRIS KRAMER: To be honest, I have no idea. I just caught it and I don't know if I really traveled or not. I just dribbled and then they called a travel. I really have no idea what happened. Q. E'Twaun, you guys shot the ball really well until the overtime. Emotionally, what did McCamey's shot do to you? Anything, do you think? E'TWAUN MOORE: Definitely. Every time he made a big shot, you just got that bad feeling inside you like, dang, he hit another one. He definitely came and knocked down big shots at the end. We just needed to stop it. But we didn't. They made plays. Q. Chris, can you just kind of talk about the, I don't know, frustration in overtime when it seemed like you guys couldn't get the ball to go in? As Coach said, you had some layups and point-blank looks from 3 after some offensive rebounds and whatnot. Did that get discouraging? CHRIS KRAMER: We got some good looks. We just have to step up and make those. If we get the opportunity again I think we'll do that. We made the hustle plays to get the ball. Gotta put the ball in the basket. And then who knows what could have happened. Our guys hustled and made those plays, but Illinois made a lot of plays down the stretch in the end of regulation and overtime. And that's a lot of their credit. Q. Chris, I'm sorry if I was out of the room at the moment. But your shot at the end of regulation, could you take us through that? It left your hand, looked pretty good? CHRIS KRAMER: Yeah, I went off a flex screen. And then down screen, dribble handoff and Shaun Pruitt really didn't hedge that well. So I had to take it. And I pulled up at the free throw line and I let it go. I thought it was good. And it rimmed out. So we had to go to overtime. Q. E'Twaun, do you have any sense at all because you beat Illinois twice in the regular season that you might have assumed too much this game, or perhaps been looking forward to the possibility of playing Indiana? E'TWAUN MOORE: I mean, no. I mean, we know it was tournament time, it's a new season in the tournament. That taught us a lesson tonight that every time is going to come ready to play in the tournament and take it up another level. We see Illinois took it up another level. Now we have to look forward to going to the NCAA tournament and taking it up another notch. THE MODERATOR: Thanks for your time. Finish up with questions for Coach Painter. Q. Matt, as recently as I think the Minnesota game when Keaton hit that shot at the end of the half, you've always talked about how you believe that momentum can be a carry-over and stoppage applied. Just looking at your guys' faces when they came out in overtime, it wasn't a look of fear but it was a look of "damn." Did you sense that and would you agree that momentum carried over? COACH PAINTER: I would agree with that. I did sense that and that was something I tried to -- it's very hard as a coach when you do sense it and you see it of trying to get them going again. And the one thing that gets you going is when you make shots. And obviously we didn't make any shots in the overtime. But it was just a breakdown on our part. Obviously when a guy makes all the shots he has, we talked about staying with him. It's just a breakdown. And they broke us down off the dribble. And he kind of came in behind the play. And we were supposed to stay with him and we didn't. And we were in position to win the basketball game. We turn it over and we don't get a stop. Then we get a good look at the basket. We really wanted to get Chris to turn the corner and get to the basket if he could and kick it to E'Twaun and he got cut off a little bit and the clock was going down. He shot that pole up. I really sensed that and I felt they had momentum. I thought we had to do something the start of the overtime. Make a play, make a basket, cessation, couple plays in succession to do that. And we weren't able to do that. Q. A young team that hasn't been in this situation before, is there a lesson that they can take from this that maybe they can apply to the NCAA tournament? COACH PAINTER: I hope so. But you ask E'Twaun the question earlier about looking past him. Our guys weren't looking past Illinois. They respect Illinois and they understand that they've struggled from the free throw line. We had some bad breaks with injuries and that they're a good basketball team. But hopefully we can learn that the game comes down to a possession or two and we've got to do a better job of taking care of the ball in that one instance and getting a stop. But I expect our guys to regroup and play hard in the NCAA tournament. Q. Freshmen are sophomores now, but they've never been in, like he said, a tournament where it could be one and done if you don't win. Did you talk to your guys about it, were you concerned about it? With this outcome, even though you lost, is this a positive learning experience having experienced this before the NCAA tournament? COACH PAINTER: I think any experience you can make positive if you look at it the right way. And that's what we'll discuss with our guys. And learn from it just like we learned from Ohio State loss at the end of the year because everybody wanted to win the Big Ten title, now come out and make you even hungrier to play in the NCAA tournament. Time will tell. Our guys are competitors. I thought they laid it on the line. I thought we had some breakdowns obviously. Defensively we had some breakdowns, but I think our guys will regroup and be ready to go. Q. Your freshmen are pretty well known because of their accomplishments this year. But Illinois may be a little bit under the radar, did you know about these other guys, Davis and Jordan, that kind of thing? COACH PAINTER: I think, first of all, when you talk about their freshmen you have to talk about McCamey, he was player of the game. And we lost this game because Demetri McCamey is special. Six of six from three and you have to tip your hat to him. He did a great job. He was the difference. I thought in the first half Davis, especially and Jordan made the one basket, those guys kept him in there. We were getting some momentum and hanging in there. And I felt Mike Davis did a very good job with him. We know about Mike's athleticism and we have seen on tape he's made a couple of 15-footers through the Big Ten season. I mean that he's made a couple. We knew he could catch and shoot 15, 17 feet. But what are you going to do when you have Meacham and Pruitt and McCamey, some of those other guys you slough off to? But after you hit a couple, we tried to talk to those guys about being there with him. But there's no doubt that their bench outplayed our bench. They did a very good job. And I talked about McCamey being the difference, but if you're going to grab one element that I thought we have an advantage over Illinois, I thought our bench is an advantage over their bench, but tonight obviously it was not. Q. What did you tell the team in the locker room after the game? And how much does this loss, do you think, hurt your seed in the NCAA tournament? COACH PAINTER: There's no question, to answer that in reverse. It hurts -- any time you lose doesn't help your seeding. No doubt about that. Unless you're losing to someone that's maybe ahead of you. Sometimes you can stay pat with that. But I just told them they've done a great job the whole year. They've battled the whole year. We've had some breakdowns, and you have breakdowns when you win. And the only thing you can do is just go back and get those things corrected and try to improve and get better. And just like a lot of your questions you guys have asked today, it's what you do as a coach. You just try to take this as a positive experience, learn from it and get better. But I'm proud of our guys. They've done a good job this year. Illinois, you know, Illinois was pretty good tonight. Q. Matt, is there any silver lining, Kramer's limping around, Grant's limping around, the extra rest you get from an early exit, is there any benefit to that whatsoever? COACH PAINTER: There's been a lot of discussion. I don't think that I've coached enough to go through so many different situations to find out what's right for your particular team. But, yeah, it will be good to have a couple days' rest. If it does help us, if there's some silver lining there, then great. Obviously we'd like to keep playing and be playing Indiana or Minnesota tomorrow. But we're not. The thing I would say about that and I've always talked about that through injuries, you know they've got guys like Chester Frazier who doesn't even practice. He's out there limping around. He's got some guys out there had to play 39 minutes last night, they turn around tonight and McCamey plays 42 and Frazier plays 45, they played the whole game. They've got guys with injuries too. But the guys we have that had injuries and battled, I'm proud of those guys. Grant and Kramer has battled. But you have to keep plugging this time of the year and try to win games. Q. There's obviously an awful lot of time on the clock and different scenarios that could have unfolded with 31 seconds in regulation, any thought in fouling them? COACH PAINTER: Yeah, I thought about it with Pruitt. I thought about doing it. But the thing, to be honest, that threw me for a loop with that, I've never done that before. But I did think about it. I did think about fouling Pruitt if he got the basketball, but I'm worried to get the rebound. If we can get a rebound off a free throw and we don't turn the basketball over, we win this game in regulation. But we couldn't get a rebound on two different occasions on back-to-back plays in regulation. Then we turn the basketball over there when we're up three with 20 seconds to go. Those are very important possessions for us. We have to get that rebound. That led into my thinking now even if he misses and he's missed them so far, can we get this rebound? Can we -- and I've never done that before. I've never experienced that and just to hand somebody points even though their percentage isn't good, I'd rather get a stop, especially with that kind of time. I think you had a lot of possessions at that time. If you're at six seconds, five seconds, four seconds, they've got it on the side, now you can control that and get a foul. But with 30 seconds right there, I think that's too much time. Q. I think the last nine minutes of regulation you didn't sub. Really sparingly in overtime when you had to. You just didn't like the way your guys were playing off the bench? You thought the guys you had in were playing better? Or what was the thought process there? COACH PAINTER: I thought Calasan was obviously doing a pretty good job on Pruitt. We wanted to keep Kramer in there defensively to defend Meacham. We had to switch up and put him on McCamey a little bit. Keaton Grant was cramping with some different things. Keaton made a couple of shots in that stretch. E'Twaun Moore I was not going to sub out of the game. And Robbie Hummel gets a double-double for us, has been solid. Like I said, I thought their bench was pretty good and did some very good things for them and allowed them to sub. And maybe some of those other guys were a little bit more fresh because of it. But we stayed with the guys who we thought were our best five. Q. Mark asked you the question about finding a silver lining maybe, if you play great next Thursday or Friday night, maybe if the rest is good. But the other side of that is if you think about it you will have only played two games in about 16 or 17 days. Is that at all a concern, or will you be able to answer that next Thursday? COACH PAINTER: I think the answer lies in how you play in the NCAA tournament. We do need some rest. And when we have those long stretches, we do get some rest. We still practice to try to stay sharp. But it lies in how you play. We'll see when we play on Thursday or Friday if that will help us. But I expect our guys to bounce back and play very hard. THE MODERATOR: Thanks for your time, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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