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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYS (MEN)October 28, 2010Matt PainterCHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE MODERATOR: Up next is Purdue head coach Matt Painter. We'll start with an opening statement and then go to questions. COACH PAINTER: Well, we are obviously very excited about this season. I think we have two of the best players in the country in E'Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson, both who have had great careers. Anytime you return experience but also return experience of having success, that's even more important. A lot of times guys will be happy that they have three or four seniors but they haven't necessarily had a great deal of experience having that success, and our guys have. So hopefully those guys will be good leaders like they have been in the past and continue to grow. And I think both of those guys have made some improvements this summer, improved their bodies and gotten better. But we have a tall task, I think, in our conference just because of the quality of teams and the quality of coaches. I think we've got a chance to have a special season this year from a conference standpoint. There's going to be a lot of people banging heads and going after each other. But really excited to get ready and to get going with this year and really like some of our new guys. But also a little anxious to watch them play in some exhibition games and some non-conference games so we can figure some things out and kind of get into a rotation before we get into conference play. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Can you explain how you're going to use your two point guards in Lewis Jackson and Kelsey Barlow this year and how the roles might vary as time goes on into conference play? COACH PAINTER: I would have bet a lot of money that would be the first question. But I appreciate you having that be the first question. I think they give us two different looks. Kelsey's obviously a guy that can play multiple positions, and we've played him at the point guard. Lewis is a guy that's just strictly a point guard, kind of the quintessential point guard at 5'7'' using his quickness. Both of them we talk about them being defenders first like we do with all of our players. And they're able to go and put pressure on the basketball. And so I feel very comfortable that we can keep 40 minutes of pressure on somebody else's point guard, 94 feet. And we put a lot of time into it. They put absolutely zero time into that in the summer. In the summer, you shoot 3s and you work on your pull-up and your individual game and then you come back to practice and then we start guarding the basketball. But I think both of those guys are really going to set the table for us defensively. Kelsey's a guy at 6'5", 6'6", long. He's our second best shot blocker on the team, outside of JaJuan. He gets in the passing lanes. He gets steals. He understands things. He just makes athletic plays and he's got a chance to be a very good player in our league. Lew is a natural leader. He's a guy that really brings it every single day and gets after it. And that's what we're going to need. We have a quiet team. And it's obviously not a good thing once you step on the floor, but Lew's not a quiet guy and he gets us going and gets us charged up. But both of those guys are going to be used in that point guard role. I can see Barlow slipping away and playing other positions to help us. So that will be interesting. Q. I'll ask the Robbie Hummel question. Where were you when you heard the news and what was sort of the initial response when you found out that he'd be out for the year again? COACH PAINTER: Well, we were practicing and a lot of times sometimes people make a big deal about the first day of practice. And we didn't have Midnight Madness because we're having construction, we're having -- we're renovating our arena. So we didn't have Midnight Madness so we were able to practice for two hours the night before. We used our two hours during the week on Wednesday and Thursday. So we practiced for one hour Wednesday, one hour Thursday, two hours Friday. And Rob practiced that whole time. So a lot of people just think he got cleared and he practiced ten minutes into his first practice. He did that. He did individual work. And I was recruiting a lot obviously in September. And the early part of October. But I probably watched him ten times do individual work before that. And your only real experience, your only real reference point is the guys you had before who have torn their ACL and come back. I've been around a couple of guys, David Teague and Carl Landry, when they've come back and been cleared, they look good but they're not the same guy. You know early on after they're cleared they're not going to be the same guy to start with. You hope in four months, five months, six months, you know, depends on each guy, that they become that player. Obviously David Teague was All-Conference and Carl Landry having a successful NBA career. Both guys bounced back. That was my reference point. When I saw Rob, that's the exact same thing I thought about those guys. Is it the same guy? No, it's not the same guy. Is he kind of in that first stage after being cleared and starting to do workouts and getting ready and going in the right direction? Yes. I always have dialogue with guys on a daily basis when I watch them play: How do you feel? Some guys will tell you -- David Teague would always tell you he was fine when he wasn't. Carl Landry would always say everything was wrong when it wasn't. And so Rob's a very cerebral guy. But this was his first time going through something like that. And, you know, he's very mature, and he would just tell you how he felt. And actually with Rob, his tendonitis in the other knee was something he complained about. They took the tendon out of the other knee to repair that knee. He was always saying: My other knee is on fire. What about your torn ACL? No, it's fine, it's fine, it's coming. And a lot of people were able to watch him. When he went out there and obviously he has his brace on, he was just in a very simple start of the practice progression drill, 3-on-2 into 2-on-1 break, and the ball just kind of came towards him and he jumped up to kind of half block a shot. You know when you jump to block a shot, then you know you're not going to get to it and you kind of hold? Well, that's what he did. And he landed and there was no physical contact and it buckled. When you saw him tear his ACL at Minnesota, everybody in here that saw that, you saw it get loose. And when you saw it get loose right away you say: Hey, he tore his ACL. Everybody said that. It's very common. On this, he just jumped up, came down, and it buckled. But then right away from his reaction you knew he tore his ACL, but not from what happened. At Minnesota, from what happened, you could see that. So for us, we have some experience of going through this. It stinks. I compare it to -- it's like Groundhog's Day for us. But we have been through this with not having him or not having him at 100 percent. And we've been able to make some adjustments. We've had some bumps in the road, and I think we've learned from that. So hopefully it's made us stronger. It's better. And it's going to give us some opportunities for some other guys. Q. How are freshmen Anthony Johnson and Terone Johnson and Travis Carroll working in with the new guys really and what kind of roles do you see for them going forward? COACH PAINTER: They've done a good job. They've worked very hard. Travis Carroll has lost 20 pounds. So him staying up with the game is very, very important. I always say: If you're not in shape to play major college basketball, you're not improving; you're surviving. And you have to be in shape so you can make improvements. He's got himself in shape. And he's learning on the fly. You're throwing a lot at guys early on. Anthony Johnson is a guy I compared to David Teague. He can make baskets and he can rebound his position. He's got some athleticism. He can move laterally. So to me that's very important. That means he can defend when you can move laterally and you have athleticism. So just trying to get him to learn our system and compete every single day, which he has. And then Terone Johnson gives us a guy with a big strong body that can make plays, break people down, can score the ball, and can defend. And I think he's got a chance to be very successful at Purdue. But I'll get excited when they do something, when the popcorn's turning. They're freshmen. And right now we're just trying to get their feet wet a little bit, get some experience, learn our system, and keep -- try to keep them playing at a high level. But there's obviously going to be some competition. Q. Can you talk about Sandi and how he's progressed and what you need from him? COACH PAINTER: Sandi has had a good week of practice. He sprained his ankle and was out for about a month. He's done a good job. He's done a very good job. I've been pleasantly surprised in his production in practice. He's done a good job rebounding, a good job adapting. We haven't had a horse like that, the 6'10", 260-pound guys. Sometimes how we flow offensively, he breaks us down a little bit. So we've got to adjust to him more than anything and give him some rules to help him feel comfortable in our offense. And then defensively, as long as he can kind of plug that middle and allow JaJuan to step out a little bit or replace JaJuan and give him a spell, it gives us that true post. He does not have a high level of experience of playing, though. He's not a guy that's been playing organized basketball since he was five years old. And that concerns me. And we just -- we need to get him in there. That's what's been so important for him last year, if he wouldn't have broke his foot, kind of getting in there, getting a little bit of experience and getting himself ready for this season. But I've been pleasantly surprised with him coming off that injury, being that productive. Not because he's been productive, but just it's hard when you sit out a month when you haven't played and you're a new guy. Q. With Robbie out, how will you adjust your style of play? COACH PAINTER: We won't change anything, obviously, defensively. We'll do a lot of the same things defensively. You know, he's a point forward. He's a guy that you can use as a facilitator. He's a skilled guy. He can drive the basketball. He can do a lot of different things. We'd obviously like to have a replica of Rob Hummel to sub in there. It doesn't work quite that way. So we're trying -- your question there is kind of my question. And I want them to give me the answer to that, just to say I can talk about each guy that possibly could plug into that equation and to have options. But I really don't have that answer. The guy that has stepped up in my opinion to this point is Patrick Bade. He's lost a lot of weight and he's in better shape and he's been very productive. He's done a very good job of rebounding for us so far in practice. That's something that he was not consistent with last year in practices. And I don't really gauge guys on games when they play five to ten minutes. It's not fair. But I do gauge them two and a half hours every day. And he's done a very good job in practice of rebounding the basketball. But I think we have to do a better job. We've gotten beat at the end of the year the past two years in the Sweet 16, and just gotten crushed on the glass by UConn and then this year by Duke. And we have to do a better job rebounding. So I think those young bigs, if they can run, rebound, defend and play off of JaJuan, I think we can have some success with that. Q. Obviously there's a lot of talk about Robbie, but about how about replacing Kramer? How difficult is that for you? COACH PAINTER: That's a very good question. I had somebody ask in our Media Day who is going to be your Chris Kramer? And I was like the Riddler, asked them the question: Well, who was the second Chris Kramer last year in college basketball? Who was that other guy that you would say is like Chris Kramer in college basketball, period? And they said, Well, nobody really comes to mind. And I said, Yeah, because there's not very many of them. He literally took guys out of their game. And the guys he really struggled against were pros. And those are the guys that would get him. He struggled against a guy like an Evan Turner. But the other guys, Chris, he would knock them out of what they wanted to do and really frustrate them. I think that's by committee. I don't think we have a guy. I think Terone Johnson could be a very good defender down the road. I think Anthony Johnson could be a good defender down the road. They're just freshmen and just kind of learning our defensive system. E'Twaun Moore has made a lot of strides. Can he carry the load and be a scorer and be a shut-down guy like a Kenny Lowe or a Cuonzo Martin in the past for Purdue, those guys have been able to do it? I think he can. I really think he can. I know we'll have good pressure on the ball with Lewis and Kelsey. It could end up being if we can't get to that with other guys, with a guy like John Hart or Ryne Smith, can't be a defensive presence for us, we can move Kelsey over because I know he has the athleticism and ability to do it. We've just kept him at the point so far in his career. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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