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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: WASHINGTON, D.C.March 21, 2008Keaton GrantRobbie HummelChris KramerE'Twaun MooreMatt PainterWASHINGTON, D.C. Q. For Rob and Chris, Coach Miller from Xavier was just in and he said he thought this game is going to come down to about three elements, you guys are a great collection of three- point shooters, he loves the way you force turnovers and he says rebounding is also going to be a key. Is that just about a perfect assessment? And can you, Rob and Chris, both assess that? ROBBIE HUMMEL: I think those are big keys to the game. I think that's a key to any game you'll play with rebounding, forced turnovers and shooting. So that's a pretty good assessment of just basketball in general, I'd say. CHRIS KRAMER: Yeah, I totally agree. Those are definitely keys to our success. Also we've got to try to stop Drew Lavender and keep him out of transition. They're really balanced in scoring. One of the most balanced teams in the country. They have about six guys in double figures. They have a lot of go-to guys, anyone can step up at any given time. Our defense has to be ready all around the board. Q. Rob, what was the game like for you the other night? I'm sure it was frustrating only getting four minutes in the first half. What are you hoping to do tomorrow? ROBBIE HUMMEL: It was frustrating getting in foul trouble. But it was good to see the guys get out and play so well. I thought we got in a flow in offense in the first half. In this game I'm trying to do what I did in the first game, and that's to get into foul trouble. Q. E'Twaun, last week you told me as a kid growing up you loved to watch the NCAA tournament. Once you get to playing in the games, you've got scouting reports, team meetings, all the preparation, but do you get to -- last night did you get to watch some games? Do you enjoy that or now that you're playing in it that kind of comes to an end? E'TWAUN MOORE: It's definitely more exciting to watch other teams play now, because to know we might have a chance to play them. Just looking at them and seeing how they play and comparing sometimes how you all play against other teams, it's just fun to watch. Q. Can you just talk about obviously everybody playing in the NCAA tournament deals with the same situation, but can you talk about the challenges that present themselves when you have to prepare for a completely foreign opponent in about 36 hours? KEATON GRANT: You can't let it get to you. Your body is a little tight, you want to rest more. You've got to pay attention to film and the little details, because we're not going to have much practice. You have to look at shooting percentages, who will be the shooters, just little assignments. Q. Keaton, I know you guys are confident, but they are the higher seeded team in this game tomorrow. How much confidence can the returning players at least take from your game last year before when you played them so tough? KEATON GRANT: We told the young guys about -- I'm pretty sure the young guys have heard stories that we tell on the bus or in the hotel about last year's Florida team. We bring the confidence. The seeding doesn't mean too much. Every game is important. Anyone can be beaten in the tournament. You win or go home, that's the most important thing we have to keep in mind. Q. Keaton, can you talk about Xavier in terms of the problems they present and what kind of challenges they provide. KEATON GRANT: Well, they're a good offensive rebounding team. Drew Lavender, being quick, he being so good in transition. I forgot his name, No. 1, Duncan, he being 6-10 and being as strong, and being able to finish around the basket. But that's the one thing we have to do is make sure we contain them. Q. Chris, I don't know how much film you've seen of Xavier so far. Does Stanley Burrell remind you of yourself, do you see similarities there? CHRIS KRAMER: I haven't seen that much film on him to make a comparison. He was defensive player of the year in the A-10. So I think there is some characteristics there, but he's a great player. He has all that experience that I don't have yet. So I've got a long way to go. But he's definitely a great player. Q. Chris, obviously you guys show that you can play an up-tempo game. But to know that this is going to be more of a grind it out game, does that get you excited, too, because you know you can excel in that style? CHRIS KRAMER: I think this is going to be a regular Big Ten style of game, just a grind it out, you know you've got to really value the basketball when you have it and you've got to try to get as many stops as you can on the defensive end. When you get Xavier to take a tough shot you have to finish it with a rebound. The biggest key is to rebound the basketball on the defensive end and get some easy baskets in transition. Q. Talking to the guys from Xavier here, they talked about how their team identity is their man-to-man defense. Just from what you've seen so far can you compare and contrast Purdue and Xavier, how you play defense. CHRIS KRAMER: There is a lot of similarities, and we haven't seen that much film yet to really make a great comparison. But the way when people -- when they're on defense and the other team goes for a ball screen, they hedge high and they really make you take it to the other side of the court instead of being able to attack. They try to pressure the basketball, and they jump in the passing lanes when they see blood in the water. There's definitely comparisons there. They have a lot of big guys down low that can rebound the basketball. The other guys rebound the ball pretty well, too. Q. You guys have such a young team. Did this all come together a little quicker than you thought it might, the great year in the Big Ten, or is it just a natural progression after what happened last year at the end of the season? E'TWAUN MOORE: We never doubted ourselves or anything like that. We thought we had a few ups and downs in the season. We definitely progressed really fast, which was a good thing for us. That let us know how good we could go be in the future. We work hard every day and things evolve from there. CHRIS KRAMER: Like E'Twaun said, it's kind of like a roller coaster there for awhile. We had some losses to Wofford and Iowa State in the Vegas Classic. When we got in the Big Ten season and we lost that one to Michigan State, it was right down to the wire, we really got -- we had the Christmas break with eight days of practice, that's where our team came together. We went to the Big Ten and won 12 in a row. After those eight days of practice that's when our team matured. That's why we're in the position we are today. Q. E'Twaun, Stanley Burrell always guards the other team's best player. It's tough because you guys have so many players, similar scoring averages. They pretty much say he's going to start guarding you. First, how do you feel about that and your preparation, do you look at who might be guarding you as you get ready to play a game? E'TWAUN MOORE: I thought since he was a guard maybe he might start off on me. That's kind of cool, I like the challenge also, like he probably likes the challenge. We've just got to go out there and put it all on the line and on the court and try to take it to him. Q. I guess this is for any of the three native Hoosiers, Keaton you can take this one off, but did you guys have a little political thing today with Congressman Buyer, I heard you might go over and visit with him and if you did, what was that like? Did it happen? E'TWAUN MOORE: Yeah, we definitely went over to the State Capitol Building. Sort of showed us around, toured us around the place. It was a great little visit. He said he's rooting for us. He said some of his family was an IU fan, that was a negative. CHRIS KRAMER: It was a great experience for us. We went over there and Senator, coach, took us on the tour and really just took us around, showed us the House and the Senate. It was a great experience for some of us that had never been there. I thought we learned a lot. It was a great team thing. But now that's over now, our focus is now all on Xavier. ROBBIE HUMMEL: Like they said, we went through the Capitol Building and it was a good time. Q. Everybody in the tournament obviously deals with the same sort of conditions, can you talk about the challenges of having to prepare on a whim for a foreign opponent in such little time. How do you prioritize things and how do you regimen things? COACH PAINTER: Well, it's the same for both teams. You obviously get the opportunity to have a live scout the game before, that helps a whole lot. You're going to change at the end of the year when you play a game in the tournament, if you lose you go homes. So you're a going to pull out all stops. The one thing that's different is we play all man-to-man defense. If you get that live scout and the team zones the whole time, it doesn't help you obviously. Georgia played man to man, so that helps you prepare for that game. We've done the same thing we've done all year in our preparation with things and how we do our scouting report, how we do our film sessions and we'll stay with the same procedure and just go out there and play hard. I think at this time of the year it comes down to Purdue, it comes down to us doing what we do best in trying to be efficient. I think the same holds true for your opponent when you play them. Q. Coach Miller was talking about how there are similarities, certainly, in your man to man. But he said that you guys do a terrific job, maybe more than they do, at being able to force turnovers and score in transition. He says, We kind of just try to get a stop, whereas Purdue scores a bunch IN transition. There are a lot of similarities, but that's a big difference. COACH PAINTER: I would say that's a big difference. He's also not talking about sometimes the negative of what we do in terms of we get beat more off the bounce than they do. I think you can go out and pressure, get after it a little bit more and you are going to get more steals. You are going to get more baskets off that, but it also -- you're going to get beat off the bounce. And with that you're probably going to send the team to the free throw line more than that. You're obviously speeding them up, trying to get them to play a certain style. I think there's a pro and a con to how we play and a pro and con to how they play. I don't think they send people to the free throw line as much as we do, they don't get as many steals. They're efficient in the half court and with their size and length they make you alter your shots, especially when you drive. So I think even though there's some similarities, there is some differences, but I don't know where the advantage lies. Q. Can you talk about Burrell and the defensive problems he presents. COACH PAINTER: Well, I think Burrell, first of all, plays very hard. He gets after it. From just watching him you can see the game means a lot to him. And a lot of times you can see that as an opposing coach, that means the guy has put in a lot of time and he cares and he's a good teammate. He's one of the better defenders we've seen all years. In terms of his offensive game, he's one of their six leading scorers. Who do you pick when one guy is averaging 11, one guy is averaging 10, 9, right in there. He's a guy that can get hot and make shots in transition, he can make shots in their offense. He burned us when we played in Indianapolis a couple of years ago, he had 20, 22 points. We know he's a talent and he's a very good player. The one thing that stands out most with him, I think he's got a very good competitive edge, and he always lays it on the line and does his best for Xavier to win games. Q. Did this whole year, with the big run through the Big Ten and everything, come together for you guys a little quicker than you personally thought, with so many young guys? The players were in here talking about the break you had over Christmas and how things kind of changed just before the league schedule started. What's your take on that? COACH PAINTER: It's hard to talk to your team about winning the Big Ten when you get beat by Wofford, you get beat by Iowa State, and down 16 to 0 against Florida International. It's tough to come back and play Michigan on January 5th and say, This is the start of our Big Ten run. We were in a bad place. We struggled through finals. We struggled with some time off. And just getting to the point in the season where it gets to be a grind. In all reality, you have to step up at that time of the year and take it to another level, because conference play was starting. I was scared, to say the least, but I did know we had enough talent in our locker room to win the Big Ten. I didn't think we had the experience to win the Big Ten; but I knew we had the talent and players and I felt we had a high basketball IQ. I kept telling them as the season kept going on in conference play that we are good enough to win the Big Ten. The one thing that I've been surprised at all along is our ability to play on the road. We've actually played better on the road all year, even though our record doesn't look that way, in terms of being efficient, taking care of the basketball, and we've done a better job of scoring. Q. After having played Baylor yesterday and kind of a different type of game than you've played the last 20 games, the guys were saying, your players were saying you kind of think about Xavier like a Big Ten game. They're going to grind, get up in the boards, get into you. Are you going back into a Big Ten-like game? COACH PAINTER: To me, I don't really talk about it in terms of a style. We knew we were going to have more opportunities offensively against Baylor. They push the basketball, they shoot the ball quick. You're going to have more possessions when you play a team like that. We were excited about that. But we knew we had to get some stops against them. A lot of people told us we played good defense against Baylor and they scored 79 points. We don't believe that's good defense. We thought we should have held them down more than we did. However the game unfolds. Will it be more half court than Baylor? Sure, no doubt about it. No matter how it unfolds, we have to defend, we have to battle on the glass. That's where we keep our focus. If it gets in transition, that's fine with us; if it doesn't, that's fine with us, also. I would like to have a mix, I would like to have a balance of playing in transition, of playing in the half court, that's when I think we're the best. Q. We didn't really talk much after the game about Rob being in foul trouble, only playing four minutes, and you guys were able to put a lot of points on the board and do some good things. What does he need to do? Obviously stay out of foul trouble. Tomorrow, he's going to be a key for you guys, right? COACH PAINTER: It's a great problem to have for us, in terms of we have a lot of depth, and we have a lot of guys that can step in and play when someone on our team gets in foul trouble. My advice to Rob is to stop fouling. I don't know what else to tell him. I'm not a coach that always complains about the officials and goes back and forth and argues every day. I hear our fans yelling, they call fouls on them, you're fouling them. Quit fouling, play with your feet. That's the best way to approach it, because it's that element of officiating that you cannot control. They have to dictate how the game is being called and we have to adjust and at times we don't adjust. If you don't do a good job at that, you have to watch the game sometimes. Hopefully he can play with his feet and not get in foul trouble. Q. Did you recruit Stanley Burrell? I think he mentioned something about you tried to get in touch but it didn't happen. COACH PAINTER: I wasn't at Purdue at the time. He actually went to prep school, if I'm not mistaken. He went from Ben Davis to prep school and that's five or six years removed and I was at Southern Illinois. We probably contacted him by phone, I do not recall, though. I know he's a good player but I don't remember. You'd have to ask one of the other guys in terms of if Purdue recruited him or not. He was under the radar. He's a guy that really made improvements late in his high school career. And obviously he's a very good player. Q. What are you guys going to do tonight? After practice you get together and watch film or what's the plan for the rest of the night? COACH PAINTER: We'll go back and rest for a little bit and then have dinner and then watch film. And then rest. And then go to bed. Q. As a follow-up to what she just asked you. I asked E'Twaun, the kids love the tournament, but when you're focused in on an opponent, when they're resting is it okay to watch games on TV? You're a junkie, do you try to catch some action, as well? COACH PAINTER: Yes, when you go by and do a bed check, you go by and some guys watch movies, some guys watch games. It's a little bit different with each guy. But some of them really get into it and others not quite as much. Q. You get into it. COACH PAINTER: Yes. Q. What was your tour like this morning of Congress, I guess? COACH PAINTER: It was good. It was a neat experience for our guys. I think sometimes it's good to kind of get away and stay moving, when you have a long day like this, when you're preparing. But yet keep your focus while you're here. It was a neat experience for our guys, and we were able to see some things, obviously, in Washington, D.C. you don't get to see every single day. It was good. End of FastScripts |
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