Michigan State’s head coach Tom Izzo, right, talks with Purdue’s head coach Matt Painter / Nick King/Lansing State Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Purdue was on the wrong side of the scoreboard again on Tuesday night, falling 75-66 to Michigan State in East Lansing. It was a third straight loss for the Boilermakers, the first time they’ve endured that type of losing streak in five seasons.
Purdue was led by Trey Kaufman-Renn, who scored 24 points. Braden Smith had another great outing, scoring 17 points, dishing out eight assists and grabbing five rebounds. But it wasn’t enough to get a road win over the Spartans.
After the game, coach Matt Painter talked with the media about the outcome. Here’s everything he had to say.
Painter: “Yeah, that really hurt us, obviously. Tough to scheme and walk through 4-on-3 breaks and 3-on-2 breaks and lobs. Had to do a better job of taking care of the basketball, even though we didn’t have an egregious number of turnovers, they were timely and they turned them into points.
“We messed up some ball-screen defense stuff that was on me. They did a good job of getting some flip-up lobs. You can’t go on the road and give up 10 dunks. That’s what they did. Our main focus was to keep them out of the paint and not let the ball get in there, but that’s exactly what they did. Easier said than done, hats off to them.”
Painter: “Braden, when they get aggressive like that, that’s exactly what he has to do is get the ball out of his hands. At times, people do that, at times, they don’t. We just have to do a better job of, when they get aggressive, not overdoing it, not over-dribbling. But you have to give them credit.
“I thought their bigs — it takes some work. We’ll keep re-screening and doing it multiple times just to drag those bigs out and try to create a pocket or try to create somebody diving or get somebody from behind with it.
“I thought they were active. He’s always got good role definition with his bigs — they’re physical, they rebound. He runs them in and keeps them fresh. Look at the numbers and (Frankie) Fidler and (Szymon) Zapala, they impacted the game. They were a big part of the game. Obviously (Carson) Cooper and (Coen) Carr get those dunks and they did a good job also. But, hats off to them, they were better than us.”
Painter: “Yeah, just to get him a break. Obviously, he was frustrated right there. Just trying to settle down and make a push there late.”
Painter: “Just not staying into the basketball. So, if you don’t have any pressure on the ball, then you pull your low man over and you stop that lob, now you’ve got to have pressure on that basketball. Either you get it from the big there, or you get it from the guars. Sometimes both. Now, you pull your low man to stop that, but then, you hope you have enough pressure where they skip it over. Then they get away from you and you don’t stay with the basketball right there, now he’s a free passer. That’s how got lobs and passes out there.
“That was on me, because we didn’t drill that enough. They don’t get that a lot. They get it a little bit, tonight they got it a lot. They found something and they stuck with it.”
Painter: “Yeah, that was a big game-changer. We were up 26-20 and (Carr) dunks four times — it’s hard to remember which dunk. The one, if we’re talking about the first half, we had a little bit of a lead. You want to go into halftime with some momentum and then start the second half and play well. These guys have always been great to start the second half. I felt like with even with what happened when they made that push at the end of the first half, if we could get to that first media timeout in the second half and be the same way, I thought we could be OK. This is going to go down to the wire type of game. But we didn’t. They took control of the game right then and there.
“We had to execute better, we had to be better defensively and we weren’t.”
Painter: “You don’t be emotional about it as a coach, you talk about practical things. We started practice in June. It’s not like we started this last week. So, you’re working on things from June until now and we have people in our program who are returning, so they understand what we work on and what we teach. We can’t get off of it. But good teams get you off of it.
“A lot of times you hear a coach talk and his knee-jerk reaction and how he speaks is, “My team didn’t do this, my team didn’t do that.’ Well, part of that is the other team and you’ve got to give them credit. They played better than us.
“The turnovers for us, that’s something — you guys that have covered us — we just can’t have the live-ball turnovers that we’ve had. And our number is not huge, but we’ve got to be better. That’s got to be a start for us. And, like I said earlier, we have to do a better job handling some actions and defending some things. But coaching wise, we have to give our guys a better chance. And it’s been an adjustment for us across the board. We don’t have rim protection. We have to keep it out of (the paint). So, we have to do a better job as a staff.
“I can’t help them when they turn it over and get in transition. I have nothing for them. You have to take care of the basketball.”
Painter: “Just to have a bigger body. I thought he did a good job. And then we went from an offensive standpoint and tried to put shooters around Trey in the second half, so I didn’t play him or Raleigh in that second half.
“You see the punch Cam (Heide) gives us when he’s ready to shoot. He’s got to be ready to shoot the basketball. I thought he passed up about three threes that he should have taken. Obviously he goes 2-for-3, I think he should have taken three more threes that he had open. Because that offensive matchup with Trey at the five and putting people that can shoot out there really puts people in binds. Really puts guys in binds.”
Painter: “It’s unbelievable. I think they cut me off in the (tribute) video, which that’s a smart decision to cut me off, I compared it to Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak, obviously it still stands, right? It’s just one of those things.
“For me, it’s different. He recruited me — I’m 54, so that means he’s old — when he was an assistant here. So, I’ve known him for a really long time. He’s done it the right way. It’s hard, man. Battling everybody in competition, but also battling your own people.
“I think people don’t realize the people that support you, you battle also. When you raise your expectations and you go to 8 Final Fours and (win) 10 Big Ten championships, people expect that. As a coach, what people expect from you is your best year. So, if he doesn’t win the national championship, win the Big Ten, he’s shit, right? And we all know he’s really good.
“If you can’t handle that then you shouldn’t coach. Treat people the right way, work hard, do the best you can, but understand it’s a game of basketball. But he’s been able to take that and change a lot of people’s lives and give people opportunities.
“It’s still like, besides the Army or Navy, somebody getting a scholarship has changed more lives than anything out there. Somebody getting an opportunity to start their life with an advantage, and sports can help you so much. But you also have to have discipline in life. He obviously has discipline, he’s on people, but he cares about them. That’s something we always talk about — we don’t yell at people we don’t care about. He’s the epitome of that and he deserves everything coming his way.”
Painter: “I don’t know. That’s one of those things where you’re kind of speaking in theory. You can kind of look at the game — he’s been out before and we’ve gotten good shots and we’ve missed them. He’s been out before and we haven’t gotten good shots.
“We don’t lose the game at the end of the first half, right? But it didn’t help us, it didn’t help us. That’s why you saw me go offense-defense with him. You’ll see that with Braden when they get in that position, because they’re just too valuable to us.
“Like, he’s a threat. If we can get him in the right position — (Izzo) doesn’t double very much. That’s kind of a back-handed compliment from (Izzo), if he comes doubling and mixing up something different, he knows that player is really good. Trey’s hard to deal with. Trey has a good skill package. He’s one of those guys where, tonight wasn’t a great game for him and he gets 24 and goes 9-for-13 (FG) and 6-for-7 (FT). He’s really worked hard to be a good player.
“Whether we have guys in the game or not have guys in the game, we have quality players across the board. We have to be better. We have to be better whether we’re in foul trouble or we’re not. And that’s hard to say because that’s a hell of an environment, they’re a good team. They’re jockeying just like we are to win the Big Ten championship. It means something.”
Painter: “I don’t think it has star power, and that’s a compliment. You know what I mean? Everybody wants to play shortstop and lead-off. (Jaden) Akins is their leading scorer, but Jase Richardson probably has the biggest upside — he does have the biggest upside.
“They have good players. (Jeremy) Fears (Jr.), for what he came back from and the toughness — I actually recruited his dad. So, they have really good pieces, they have a good team. It fits together. Sometimes they’ve had more talent and their record has been worse. Sometimes they’ve had more talent and their record has been great. I think that’s the key, you can see that they’re playing for each other, they’re sacrificing for each other.
“When you have different guys like Zapala, Fidler that come into their program, they just want to win, man. They want to get into the NCAA Tournament, they want to win the Big Ten, go to a Final Four. You’re hungry for it because you haven’t been on that stage and you haven’t been there. The other guys, their roles expand and they get better, but they’re not off the charts.
“He’s always done a good job of bringing guys in and out trying to wear you down. But you have to buy into it. I think that’s probably the best word, from my perspective, not anything he has said to me. Just watching, it looks like they have 100% buy-in. That’s what you want as a coach, because it’s hard to get to that point. It’s hard to get through roles with everybody on your team.
“I like guys to be a little bit on edge. I want them to want more, but I also want them to trust me just like I trust them. But I do what’s best for Purdue, it’s not always going to be what’s best for them.”
Painter: “I thought he played a good floor game. He has five assists and one turnover, he tried to be aggressive. A couple times he picked it up and made nice plays, he made a nice pass to Will in the first half.
“They’re going to take that away, and that’s a tough thing. We tried to run a couple of actions to get him off of it, one he gets a three out of it.
“But he’s very experienced, he’s a good player and we had to player better to open things for him. We have to play better, we just do. We’ll get back to it. But Fletch is great.”
Painter: “I called two (timeouts) in the first half, you don’t want the game to be over right there. So it got to 13 and then we made a play, I think made a three — it gets cloudy for me sometimes, I don’t remember the sequence — that’s it. You’re in a dilemma right there. Do we really have to burn (a timeout) to slow (things down)? Or can we show some toughness here and execute. But it’s also hit and miss.
“You make one, they quiet down, now hopefully you can go get a stop and get a little bit of a run there. But you’re in a dilemma as a coach. I’ve called it before and then later on said, ‘Man, late in the game and I need one but I burned it.’ Then I’ve left it alone, we turn it over twice, they hit two threes and it’s 16 to 19 points and that’s a wrap. You’re always going to second guess. It’s just one of those calls, you just hopefully have to make the right call in that situation.”
Painter: “It’s one of those things that great, but sometimes when you get late in games, it’s not great. You know you want that guy that you can get the basketball to that’s going to get your team a shot or get himself a shot if he gets stuck. Sometimes you’ll get with certain guys, where if they can’t deliver, now they’re stuck.
“It’s a good question. From a gameplan standpoint, everybody is good. Let’s use Jaxon Kohler — he had nine and four, but the best game he played was his best game. Jase Richardson last week had a humungous game. Obviously, we know the talent and the ability that he has. Across the board, they have a lot of solid pieces, then they have a couple guys that are emerging still.
“And then, if anybody is the guy, Akins needs to be that. But it’s just a credit to him that when he’s not, it’s cool and they’re winning. That’s what you want. Because that just makes his teammates better, it makes him better.
“But sometimes it’s tough. When you know — when you come and face us, you know our top-two dudes, and then we play off of those guys a lot. (Izzo) has had teams like that. When you get guys that get themselves to that level — first- and second-team all-conference guys — we do everything in our power to help those guys. They get the attention and if they can be distributors and passers, now everybody can eat.
“Trey Kaufman got caught up a little a couple times, but when you see us get our pocket pass there, if he just pauses, he’s got that shot, he’s got his kickout, he’s got the dump-down, he’s got the spray-out to the other side. That’s contagious when your best players are passers.”
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