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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: SPOKANEMarch 20, 2010JaJuan JohnsonChris KramerE'Twaun MooreMatt PainterSPOKANE, WASHINGTON THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with Purdue student-athletes. Take questions for them at this time. Q. If all three of you would address this, obviously Texas A&M's a good rebounding team and that's been a concern for you guys all year long. I don't know if you've seen film on them yet but could you each talk about the importance and significance of rebounding in this game and why are Texas A&M players such good rebounders? JAJUAN JOHNSON: Oh, man, rebounding is real important in the game. We know that's one of the things that if we rebound well we always give ourselves a chance to win. As far as Texas A&M, they're a great rebounding team. They're really athletic. They have a lot of size inside and on the wing. So they really crash hard so we just have to man up to them tomorrow. CHRIS KRAMER: I agree with JaJuan. They're very long and athletic. Loubeau and Davis are two big bodies. Their guards do a great job. So for us, rebounding's always been a concern but we just have to rebound by committee and just try to block out and make them be one and done. E'TWAUN MOORE: Yeah, they definitely are big inside. And they're athletic. So I think the most important thing would be for us to go out and rebound as a whole, not just the fourth and five man rebounding. Take the guard, get in there and help, mix it up some and make them just get one at the offensive end and hopefully we'll do a good job of that tomorrow. Q. For all you guys, most teams this time of year say hey, defense is important. We're built on defense. But you guys really personify that. Can you describe your practices, or the methods that you guys actually use for defense instead of just rolling the ball out and playing? E'TWAUN MOORE: Defense, I think, is more mental a lot of times. Just keeping your man in front of you, not let him go past you and just being alert. Just having pride guarding my man. I think that's what it all boils down to. Just going out there and just saying, okay, he's not going to score 20 points tonight. I know he averages 20 but I'm going to hold him to at least 10 or eight or something like that. And it just comes from within yourself. CHRIS KRAMER: I agree with him when he says defense is a about pride. Our practices are a majority of defense, he will mix in a little bit of offense, but he runs a lot of defense for us. So if we can keep the other team from scoring, not let them get in their plays or get in it there as cleanly as they would like that really disrupts the timing. So we try to stay tight on down screens and show. We mix it up on ball screens, depending upon the personnel of the team we're playing and it just kind of depends on those matchups, but it always all just comes down to having pride on the defensive end. JAJUAN JOHNSON: Our coach, ever since we came to Purdue as freshmen, defense was the thing that he really stressed and was pretty much the thing that we are known by at Purdue is our defense. So since the time I've been here that's the thing that he's always hard on and we start practice with closeouts every day, so we start practice with defense every day, just gets you in that mindset. Q. How much are you looking forward to that game within the game, the matchup with David Loubeau, obviously you're giving up five or six inches and he's playing well but clearly you're tough to move. Just talk about that matchup tomorrow. CHRIS KRAMER: Any time you're guarding a guy that's -- he's obviously a very skilled player, he has a lot of moves in the low box. For me I just got to try to make it hard for him. Try to get in front of him, not get the ball in position, get in positions where I'm deep where I'm very vulnerable. Try to make him get in the position where I can get up there and pressure him and try to make him work to get position in order to be successful. We have some of my other teammates there to help me out a little bit. Q. Have you been amazed at the number of upsets and near upsets here in the first week as you watch the games? JAJUAN JOHNSON: Not really. Something like that happens all year, where some teams just upset a lot of teams that weren't supposed to win. This tournament's pretty much so wide open, we had a -- from the top seeds they got upsets sometime during the year for the lower seeds, so I really wasn't too surprised about it. CHRIS KRAMER: I'm not surprised at all. That's why they call it March Madness. That's why you go out and play the games. The seeding doesn't really matter. You might be a higher seed because you have the chance to play some people and beat some very good people and those mid major teams are just coming out and showing people they can play and they can play with some of the best teams in the country and they kind of play with that chip on their shoulder because they didn't get he recruited by some of those higher-named schools and they come out and lay it on the line every night. So I'm really not surprised at all. E'TWAUN MOORE: I think that anything's expected during the tournament. Everyone try to play for a championship and everyone will come out and play hard and try to fight and try to win. It's definitely going to be a lot more close games and some more upsets hopefully, I mean maybe in the upcoming next few games, man. I don't know. Some of them I think some of them are surprising. Like Georgetown game, I didn't think they would lose that one, but I mean that's why you got to come out ready to play from the beginning and knowing that every team is coming out trying to win the championship. Q. Can you guys all talk about the importance in getting Keaton Grant off? Obviously he was huge in the second half yesterday, the importance of him contributing offensively to you guys. E'TWAUN MOORE: Man, he's definitely huge. I think he scored on our run the second half like 11 out of 13 points. And that was definitely a big momentum boost, taking over the second half. Hopefully tomorrow he'll come out and knock some more shots down and man, just he's just a great contributor to the team. CHRIS KRAMER: I think that one of the ways for to us get Keaton really involved is keep getting him these open shots. In the first half he had some great looks, they tended to fall down for him and we just kept going back to him. In the second half he got hot and then kind of rode his wave there for awhile. We went on that big run there so we had to set good screens and try to get him some open looks and just keep that confidence instilled in Keaton. JAJUAN JOHNSON: When Keaton's hitting, it just opens up things for myself, E'Twaun, and Kramer. It's just another weapon out there that they have to respect the three ball of his and once they do that, it just opens up everything for everyone. Q. For E'Twaun, since Hummel's injury it seems your field goal percentage has been a little lower than usual. Do you think there's a correlation between the two or is it something completely different? E'TWAUN MOORE: No, I've been taking the same shots as before. Nothing changed. It's just a few times that they didn't fall the same shots, same flow, the same 3-point shot, but just got to keep my head up and just keep going and still take the next open shot. Q. Guys, you were picked as possible being upset in the first round. Do you need any motivation tomorrow or what is the motivation for tomorrow? JAJUAN JOHNSON: I don't think our team needs any more motivation. We have dealt with our share of adversity this whole year. Pretty much we know as long as the guys in that locker room believe that we can accomplish something, that's all that really matters. I know we'll come out and play as hard as we can tomorrow. CHRIS KRAMER: Personally what motivation do you need? You're a senior, if you lose you're done. And for me that's my motivation and I think that it really showed in the second half against Siena that our guys didn't want to let us go home. They kind of rallied around us. And you always pick up on that intensity. So we just got to come out again and show that intensity and maybe take it up another level for this game against Texas A&M, but the only thing we can do is lay it on the line and hopefully things will go in our favor. E'TWAUN MOORE: We're trying to win a championship and that's our goal. Our guys in the locker room all have faith in ourselves. Even though a lot of people might doubt us at times. But we just got to stay strong as a unit and make it to Indianapolis to the Final Four. That's definitely the motivation for us. So hopefully we can reach our goal. THE MODERATOR: All right. We'll dismiss the student-athletes and we'll have coach in and take questions for coach. Q. They're a good rebounding team and that's obviously a key and when you're playing well you usually rebound well. Talk about what you like about the way Texas A&M rebounds the ball and then the second half of the question that's going to be a great challenge for you tomorrow, isn't it? COACH PAINTER: I think Texas A&M's a very good team. They are a good rebounding team. But that's not their only focus. Sometimes you'll play a team that can really rebound and if you keep them off the glass you're going to beat them. They have proven with their schedule and what they have been able to accomplish this year that they can play a couple different ways. They can play in the half court and use their size, but they also have very athletic guards that can break you down. They have a skill set -- yesterday they had some guys really step up and make some shots. So I think it's going to be important for us to keep them out of transition, keep them off the glass, and make them score over us. But that's easier said than done. Q. You've obviously got a history with Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon. Talk about that and how much are you looking forward to the challenge of playing against him again. COACH PAINTER: He did an excellent job at Wichita State to put himself in position to land the Texas A&M job. And you know his teams are going to play very hard and they're going to be very good on defense. He gives his guys freedom to play through their system. He's done an excellent job at all the stops that he's been at. To be frank, I'm not looking forward to playing against him. I think any time you get into the tournament you're not looking forward to playing anybody because you're facing very good teams. He's done a great job with Texas A&M. Q. Have you been at all surprised, do you have a theory as to why there's been so many upsets this first weekend and to follow-up, as somebody who cut his teeth at a mid major do you derive a little bit of joy watching all these mid majors beating up on some of the power conferences? COACH PAINTER: There's a lot of parity. There's a lot of good teams out there. And that's what you fight to get as a mid major team, you fight to get bigger schools on a neutral court. That's what the NCAA tournament is. You're going head to head and you're on a neutral court and you don't have that home crowd behind you, you don't have your officials with you, and there's a little bit more balance. You want to keep that edge. I think that what Turgeon has been able to do is when you're at a mid major you always have that edge because have you a bunch of kids on your team for the most part that got turned down by the high major schools. I think he's been able to do that at Texas A&M and it's something we have tried to do at Purdue is to be able to get high level players but also get guys that have that edge to them that are going to go out there and battle and compete just like you're at a mid major school. Q. How about the upsets? Are you surprised at all? COACH PAINTER: I'm not surprised. I don't know if they're upsets. If you look at Siena's team, it's a great example. They had to play without Clarence Jackson, so that's a tough thing to do and it just happened and this is their first game to do it but those guys are all juniors and seniors. And that's what you see more at a mid major level. You see more juniors and seniors and that's their advantage. Their advantage is they have players but they also have older players and you just have more experience and have you more chemistry with those guys. So it might look like an upset, but those teams are a mid major that in the tournament are very good basketball teams. The one thing they don't have a lot of and it's a position we're in right now with no excuses, is size. It's hard to get size. Almost every kid we recruited here in the past couple years, they have eyeballed JaJuan Johnson and Robbie Hummell and said how do I get past them. And that's a tough thing to do in recruiting when you get two established guys as freshmen. Q. If you had to pick three keys to victory, what would those be? COACH PAINTER: I think that our keys to victory have nothing to do with who we play. We have had a couple games here in the past three weeks where we have really struggled to rebound. When we have been competitive on the glass we have won. It's been that simple for us. It doesn't mean that's an absolute and it's going to happen, but just rebounding the basketball, our shot selection when we take good shots and take care of the basketball obviously we shoot a higher field goal percentage, but we keep people out of transition. We don't make careless mistakes. So I would say just that shot selection, the rebounding, and then just playing with a passion. Playing with energy. I thought the start of the second half we really showed that. We got after it but I didn't think we had that in the first half. But you lose a little bit that you have when you don't make shots. You got to try to keep your guys going when they go through a tough period when they struggle from the field. So I would say those three things are the most important for our team, no matter who we're playing. Q. Could you just kind of discuss the way this game sets up as a real defensive struggle between the two teams? COACH PAINTER: I think that's the strong point for both teams is their defensive play. Not to say on the other end of the court it's a weakness, because I don't think it is for either team, but that's what you have to hang your hat on, on the defensive end. That's where Texas A&M hangs their hat. When they're shooting the ball well, they're a very, very tough team to beat. Because of what they do defensively. But they have size, they have athleticism, they have guys that can break you down, it's going to be important for us with their size and our lack of size that we're able to stay out of foul trouble. But we're also able to do that and stay aggressive. We can't go in with that kind of a mindset and play a passive game or they're just going to kill us on the glass. We got to do a good job of keeping them in front of us and keeping good rebound balance. But I think it's going to be a high energy game. Two teams that are going to play very hard. Q. Are you far enough removed now from Robbie's injury that you created even a newer identity, a different identity with this team? COACH PAINTER: We play smaller. It doesn't mean we can't play hard and we can't get after it. We have to use our small ball so to speak. We have to use that as an advantage. If that becomes a disadvantage, we're in trouble. But at times it's been a disadvantage for us, and at other times it's really been an advantage because we have been able to extend, use our pressure, and get after it. And hopefully create some turnovers that lead to points. I thought that happened yesterday in the second half for us. Q. Ever since the Hummel injury E'Twaun Moore's field goal percentage has gone down. Do you believe there's a correlation between the two? COACH PAINTER: I've thought about that. But I don't think so. We have stuck with E'Twaun, he's been very consistent for us and he's had a stretch of games, five, six games in the past three years where he's had a little bit of a struggle shooting. But I think that's true for every scorer if you went and grabbed four or five games at one stretch for Donald Sloan or you went and grabbed four or five games for Edwin Ubiles, they have periods of the season where they're struggling. But every big time scorer does and he's no different. We're coming back to him. We have a lot of confidence in him to step up and make plays. Q. I know you talked about your respect for Mark Turgeon. Can you go back briefly and just remember your first associates or meetings with him and what -- it sounds like you guys get along pretty well as friends? COACH PAINTER: He's great guy. Very good coach. Got a lot of respect for him. He does it the right way. He recruits kids that's going to fit his system and his personality and I was only a head coach at Southern Illinois for one year and so we just played a couple games. But they were always tough to play against. Wichita state, the city of Wichita's a great basketball city. He's done a great job here going to the tournament three years in a row. Q. Could you discuss the challenge that Chris Kramer as an undersized guy having to play the post now defending a guy like Loubeau with all his moves? COACH PAINTER: Right, Loubeau's a guy that I watched yesterday and he went to the middle a couple times and I said to one of my assistants I said, well force him the other way so he went the other way and he scored. Well force him the other way, well, more or less told me he's run out of ways. A guy like that that's 6'10" that can go over either shoulder and he's your forward. And you're forcing the other team not to put their biggest guy on him, he's a very good player. And I've been really impressed with him and in film but I've been impressed with all their guys. I think that's what happens when you get into the tournament. You just can't grab a guy or two and say shut these guys down and you're going shut down Texas A&M. They have a lot of weapons. And they bring weapons off the bench. But that's going to be an interesting matchup. Because we're going to need some help there. If we can't turn the tables a little bit where they need a little bit of help, also, with the perimeter guy defensively, then that is really going to hurt us. Q. You're not playing for those of us that are Michigan State stories what do you see on them after playing them and what do they have to do well to become what Tom's looking for? COACH PAINTER: I think where they have struggled is offensively, just clicking. The thing that he's always had questions going into the NCAA tournament, he always seems to find the answer at the right time. I think having a close game yesterday will help that team. They obviously lost in the conference tournament, they had a big lead in our conference race and then Kalin got hurt. And then at the end they were able to win their last couple games to have a share of the Big-10 title. But I think their defense is something that has remained solid. Obviously they're a great rebounding team. I think those are going to be constants for them. Their ability to defend, their ability to rebound, and just they always seem to find a way come tournament time to click offensively. I think that's -- there's a lot of people out there from Durrell Summers to Draymond Green to Korie Lucious, they have guys that have done it on a big stage before. So they're not asking guys to step up and do something they haven't done before. We have some guys that are capable for us that come off the bench, but they have done it in a Sweet 16 game or an elite 8 game or a Final Four game against UCONN. They have that and they have that reference point and I think that getting a big win, if they can get this next win I think they will get that swagger back and really be able to make a run deep into the tournament. THE MODERATOR: All right thank you, coach. COACH PAINTER: Thanks. End of FastScripts |
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