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Purdue NC Presser - Matt Painter, Zach Edey - Mason Gillis · Coaches Corner

• 0:01
  We're now joined by Purdue head coach Matt Painter. Midway through this thirty minute
• 0:04
  question and answer session will be joined by Zach Edie and Mason Gillis. Coach,
• 0:09
  would you like to tell us how things are going today so far and
• 0:11
  then we'll start taking questions. Yeah, obviously, you know, it's a
• 0:16
  quick a little bit quicker turnaround for us, so for everybody, but just
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  you know, watching the game last night and watching a little bit of tape
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  and just trying to talk to as many people as possible. You know,
• 0:32
  the most important team is your team. I think anybody would say that at
• 0:35
  this point. But you kind of is a very very good basketball team,
• 0:41
  very good defensively, run a lot of really good stuff offensively, probably going
• 0:46
  to steal a couple of things. I'm going to steal a couple of things
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  for next year. But he's just done a phenomenal job, you know,
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  to to win the national championship and then to be back in this position.
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  I think there's a lot of things that come with ultimate success. That's hard
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  to do what they've been able to do, and to be able to piece
• 1:08
  a team together and be able to compete and win multiple championships in their conference,
• 1:15
  in the tournament, and to keep that focus and the way they've won,
• 1:19
  you know, you know, there's been some teams that have hung in
• 1:23
  there with them and then they've separated from them, and there's been some other
• 1:26
  teams that have just gotten flat out blitzed. And so it's you know,
• 1:32
  you have to be on your p's and q's. You got to take care
• 1:34
  of the basketball. You've got to be able to rebound. You've got to
• 1:37
  be able to be good in transition. If you take bad shots and you
• 1:41
  turn the ball over, you you're in deep trouble. It's a quick two
• 1:45
  or a quick three for them. They're probably the best I've seen in a
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  long long time. And being able to take your mistake and make you pay
• 1:53
  for it. At times when you make mistakes other teams they're probably going to
• 1:57
  make you pay. But it's just not all automatic. It just seems once
• 2:00
  that happens, it's it's automatic. So you just you know, can't can't
• 2:07
  have those type of turnovers and those types of bad shots. Then you've got
• 2:10
  to be able to guard them. You know, if you do those things,
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  you got a chance. Doesn't guarantee success, you got a chance.
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  But if you don't, you know you don't have a chance. Our first
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  question, coach is going to come to the right side of them and think,
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  that's Brian under the cap, Hey, Matt, Brian Hamilton from the
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  athletic. In terms of personnel and roster construction, you look at you guys,
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  Yukon, then go back to like Kansas, Virginia, Villa Nova.
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  What have we learned or what should we have learned? Wins and works these
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  days? Right? I think everybody is in a different situation. I think
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  the landscape is what it is. But I think first and foremost, can
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  you recruit nationally? Can you recruit your area? Like sometimes you mean to
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  take a job. Everybody always says, or we're going to recruit our backyard.
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  But if your backyard is not very fertile and you don't have a lot
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  of players there, like what are you really supposed to do? Just take
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  the best players and aren't quite good enough. So when you're an elite school
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  and you've put yourself in a position like a Yukon or a Kansas who's done
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  it for many, many years, you know you can get involved with a
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  lot of people. You know what we've been able to do, you know,
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  through our losses in recruiting is understand you know who we can get and
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  who we can't get, and then just be smarter about it. And then
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  we've really recruited towards the production and the functionality of our system and what we're
• 3:43
  trying to do. Now, with that being said, you still have to
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  be able to get your guys, right, you got to have Braden Smith,
• 3:50
  got to have let your lawyer, got to have obviously Zach Eedy,
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  got to have Biggie Swan again, you got to have Carson Edwards. Then
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  that's when role definition is so important. So a lot of people that are
• 4:00
  picking out of the portal and doing that, they're trying to get the most
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  talented guys if they're getting multiple guys. So if you say someone's got to
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  get six or seven guys, there's no way six or seven guys are going
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  to be successful. It's impossible, right, But if you're in our situation
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  where you've got to get a guy or two, you know, Cam Spencer
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  is a great example. You know, you're blending in to what they already
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  had and then what he brings fits what they do, especially how tough he
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  is how you know, how he has a great feel, how he understands
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  offensively. So that's a little bit different than somebody just going into the spring
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  and then there you know, their roster management is two thirds of their team,
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  right and you and we've always seen that before this with when somebody gets
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  a new job. So now if you get a new job in this landscape,
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  you know you could sign thirteen people, right and and so that's that's
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  a whole lot different. So it kind of depends on who you are,
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  where you're at, who you can get, who you can't get, And
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  what is tough is name, image and likeness wasn't supposed to be put in
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  place for whoever's got the most money gets the best players. But if you
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  kind of want to be truthful about what's going on and the part of our
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  business that stinks, that was happening before. So now those teams that we're
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  doing that before now get to do it through name, image and likeness.
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  And it's a double whammy because they're not just getting their name, image and
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  likeness money, they're getting their money that they were getting before that was illegal.
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  So the people that do it the right way, you know, you
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  can get mad about it all you want, but you need to keep your
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  focus on yourself. So that's what we've tried to do. Keep our focus
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  on ourselves. And if that's what you want to do, like, good
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  for you. We can still go get good basketball players, mesh them together
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  and have a good product. We have that eleven questions in the queue.
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  Right now, let's go up front to the left. Den Yeah, mad
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  Dan walkrom Usa today. You know, as much as you have to talk
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  about and live in and and some woays get defined by tough tournament losses.
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  How do you as a coach, you know, sort of keep focus on
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  just being good every year and the value in what your program has has done
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  year after year. Right, Just try to keep working, Try to be
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  honest about your mistakes, try to be honest about just everything. You know,
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  it's an inexact science, you know at times, especially from a recruiting
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  standpoint, but you know, learn from, you know, your tough losses
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  and don't run from them and face them. And so that's what we've tried
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  to do. You know, we've been to that second weekend a lot,
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  but we haven't been able to get through it. We only got to the
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  lead eight once before this, and so you know, just keep plugging,
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  you know, feel good about like what you're doing, feel good about your
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  convictions. And when it gets right down to the game, our tough losses
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  the last four years, don't turn the basketball over, don't go for for
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  twenty two from three or whatever those numbers are. Like you know, you
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  know you but I know this. If we don't turn the basketball over and
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  we still go for for twenty time to whatever those numbers exactly are, we're
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  probably gonna win those games. So like last night was a was an outlier
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  game for us. You know, we had a high level turnovers, but
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  we went ten for twenty five from three and we still establish Zachet even though
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  he didn't have like like an unbelievable game for him. You know, those
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  numbers are very average, you know, you know for him, they're not
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  average for everybody else. But yeah, just trying to do those things and
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  you know, stay functional on what we're doing. Second ar l left side.
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  Hey, coach Claire Hannah with ts N, I'm sure you're trying to
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  keep a lot of consistency in your prep as you prepare for this game,
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  But have you noticed a different energy or vibe from your players as you're on
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  the verge of this National Championship camp. Not really, it's you know,
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  obviously it's a quick turnaround. So like when you're you know, you go
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  to your postgame meal, you know, you go to breakfast, you watch
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  film, and here we are. So it's not a lot of time in
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  terms of what we're doing. You know, they understand what we're up against.
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  They understand we haven't played anybody like Yukon. They're not fools. We
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  have cable where we're from, so like we're very familiar. I think that's
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  the number one thing of you know, not fearing your opponent, but respecting
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  your opponent. We have a lot of respect for Yukon. They have great
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  individual players, they have a great coach, and so understand it, like
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  absorb that, take that in and you know that's where you have to start.
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  But we've played great teams all year, and just like when we dive
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  into the personnel, whether that's Gonzaga, whether that's Tennessee, whether that's Marquette,
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  whether that's Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan State on down the line, you
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  know, respect your opponent, respect those coaches, respect the players, understand
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  how they've really beat people, how they've really dominated people. And I think
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  the word dominate comes out with Yukon right. They've dominated people. They haven't
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  dominated like the bad teams, they've dominated some great teams. And then with
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  that, how do they go about it? And just study it? But
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  it's easier to study and like look at than it is. You know,
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  you got to be able to do your job. You got to be able
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  to embrace the physicality, keep them out of transition, keep them off the
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  glass, keep them out of their sets and what they want to do.
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  You know, it's easy to watch and understand that, but it's very,
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  very hard to do, and that's our challenge. Coach, We'll go to
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  the right side. Second row, Chris. Coach Chris been with the ESPN.
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  We've talked about like what you learned after last year, getting better at
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  the three, being more athletic, quicker. Would you be here today if
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  you didn't have those scars from last year and if someone had told you you're
• 9:33
  going to have to go through it in order to get to this place,
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  would you have taken that deal? Yeah? To answer your last question,
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  I think I think to get in this position, you would take it right,
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  you would say, hey, let's let's take that loss to get here.
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  I'd prefer not to do that though. The problem with a really tough
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  loss when it ends your season is you don't have another game. Like when
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  you blow a game on January sixteenth, you just play on January twenty first,
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  you know, and you get that taste out of your mouth, you
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  get it back like you can. But when you have a loss at the
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  end of the season, you know, you have to sit in it and
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  you have to take it and and some of that is healthy in a sense.
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  You're just It's why I try to keep, you know, our players
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  from going into coaching, because there's such a level of misery. You know,
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  there's there's so many good things, and I'm so glad I did it
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  because of the relationships. But I don't like, you know, you don't
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  choose how you feel. I always compare it to dreams, like, you
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  know, why is this person in my dream that doesn't he shouldn't be here
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  or whatever. You don't pick your dreams. Your dreams are your dreams.
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  But we all understand some of our dreams are nightmares too, and you don't
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  pick those either, And so that piece of it of being able to have
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  to go through it and feel that, I think helps you get on edge,
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  helps you to be a little sharper. But I think you only need
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  to do it once, though we've done it multiple times. What was your
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  first question? Again? I apologize, I don't think so. I think.
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  You know when you make a statement like would we be here without Zach
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  Edy? No, you know, would you be here without Braiden Smith?
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  Know? And as you start to trickle down as a coach, you realize
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  the importance. I have two guys that didn't play for me last night,
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  Caleb First and Ethan Morton, and they started for me the year before,
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  and with their attitudes and the way they've handled things and the way they've been
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  professional as young people, we wouldn't be here with them either. Without them
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  either, like they're a big part of our team and it pains me that
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  they don't play. It's really hard for me as a person to do that
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  because I wanted to work for each individual. But at the end of the
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  day, I have to make decisions that are best, you know, for
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  Purdue, and it's also best for circling around Zach, and it's in circling
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  around Braiden and our core guys and how they do it. We've really went
• 11:58
  to a more offensive front to where we're putting as much skill out on the
• 12:01
  court as possible. So I'm very appreciative of those guys and just appreciative of
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  the guys are on our scout team. Like people that come to Purdue,
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  they don't come to be on the scout team. They come to play.
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  And then when you don't, and then you have to be on the scout
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  team, and you have to do those things, man, and to be
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  able to swallow your pride and do it and try to help us, like
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  you know, I have a lot of respect for that, and I appreciate
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  those guys. Coach, you'lllet up front Gene and Matt Gene Wong The Washington
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  Post. What similarities can you draw from the journey you're on compared to what
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  Virginia did in twenty nineteen, or if you look at it, something different
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  because each year and each team I have an own unique story. No,
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  I think that that's actually an accurate narrative. Sometimes people will pick up narratives
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  that you know, out of thin air instead of doing their work. This
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  is actual the right narrative. The thing I grab from it more than anything
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  is just the humility of Tony Bennett, how he handled it with class.
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  I think anytime you can take it, you know, you got to be
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  able to take it. You know, when you're a little kid, you
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  know, that was always the line. You know, you know can you
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  know you can dish it out, but you can't take it right. That's
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  the old saying. And we're all that way as young people like we you
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  know, we can say whatever we want. Then it hurts when it comes
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  back your way, but you know, use that in a positive spind But
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  more than anything, what stood out to me was when we had that loss.
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  You know, we joined that club with Virginia and Tony Bennett and he
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  had just gotten beat I think by by Furman that day, and you know,
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  you're you're at a low when you when you have tough losses like that,
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  and for him to think of us and to think of me and to
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  reach out to me on that day was you know, that was great.
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  So from just a humanity standpoint, right just like you know, there there
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  are some good people out there that are thinking about others even when they're down
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  and out and once again, it's not who you are, right, It's
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  not who you are. It's what you do for a living. It means
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  a whole lot, but it's not who you are, and try to keep
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  that in perspective up front end center. See Bartley Boiler upload Rivals Matt.
• 14:09
  Last year he talked a lot about how your team lost confidence this season,
• 14:13
  it comes to seems to be the opposite. Regardless of results, there's been
• 14:16
  confidence after losses. What about your team this year? And then in regards
• 14:20
  to Braiden yesterday, just what did you see from confidence in him and confidence
• 14:24
  in your team regardless of results? Well, I think you know, through
• 14:28
  confidence for us, I think a lot of that gets drawn from how people
• 14:33
  shoot the basketball, right. I think that's a not necessarily how they play
• 14:37
  basketball, but how they shoot the basketball. And I think when you miss
• 14:41
  shots and you're used to making them, and you turn the ball over and
• 14:43
  you're used to not and that combination, I think that combination for Braiden yesterday
• 14:48
  was really hard for him to take in. I thought our team did a
• 14:50
  good job, our staff did a good job of just keeping in positive.
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  He's a big piece of what we do. He runs the show for us.
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  So that was just a great example of not being at your best but
• 15:03
  still winning a game in a in a really tough environment versus a tough team.
• 15:07
  And so yeah, you just stay with it. You just keep plugging,
• 15:13
  and you keep trying to help each other, and now you know you
• 15:16
  you step up and you have a good game, and maybe that other person
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  is going to be somebody that was helping you the night before that you have
• 15:22
  to help. And you know, just the reciprocity of being a good teammate
• 15:26
  and being a good coach and understanding that you know you're you're gonna have some
• 15:31
  failure, but sometimes you can build off of that failure and even have more
• 15:35
  success because of it. By the column over here, Pete Matt Pete Themil
• 15:41
  from ESPN, I'm wondering if you could just give us a little excellent insight
• 15:46
  compare contrast on the big man matchup. It's obviously gonna be one of the
• 15:48
  focuses of the game on Monday in terms of Donovan and Zach, And maybe
• 15:52
  it's the second part reflect a little bit on your philosophy of staying with recruiting
• 15:56
  and developing big men like Zach when the trends of the game clearly have kind
• 15:58
  of away from that, right, Yeah, you know, just for us,
• 16:02
  it's it's circling the wagons around our best players. You know, if
• 16:04
  that's Carson Edwards, so be it. You know, when we came three
• 16:08
  tenths of a second from going to a final four in that game, you
• 16:11
  know, we didn't play post up basketball, you know, we you know,
• 16:15
  we tried to do as much stuff in space, and he was so
• 16:18
  good and dynamic that we just we let it rip. And people don't realize
• 16:25
  with that team that he really struggled at the end in the Big Ten.
• 16:30
  Even though we won the Big Ten that year, we really struggled. We
• 16:33
  got beat in the first round of the Big Ten tournament. He didn't shoot
• 16:36
  well the last couple of games of the season after really shooting well, and
• 16:38
  then going into the tournament, you know, he became the darling of the
• 16:41
  tournament. You know, his last three games he made ten, nine and
• 16:44
  eight threes. But going in, you know, we just felt we had
• 16:48
  a lot of makes coming our way and it could go the other way,
• 16:52
  right, so we just tried to circle around our best guys. We've just
• 16:55
  had a lot of big guys. But we've still had some pretty dynamic guards
• 16:57
  from each one more to Jade and Ivy to Carson Edwards. Obviously we have
• 17:02
  good guards on this team, but just trying to play through them and their
• 17:07
  strengths and keep building off of that. The one thing I think that we
• 17:10
  do a better job than most people with it is we make them decision makers,
• 17:15
  because if you're going to get the ball a lot, you know,
• 17:17
  yesterday, like Zach had some turnovers and like you know, now, let's
• 17:21
  watch those turnovers. Let's look at it, Let's see what they're doing,
• 17:23
  Let's learn from that. No different than a point guard. You know,
• 17:26
  Brandon had some turnovers yesterday, So let's watch that and see, you know,
• 17:30
  the mistakes that you're making, and then just grow from that, because
• 17:33
  even when you start to have success in certain areas, it can still rear
• 17:37
  its ugly head, and great teams will you know, they will enhance that
• 17:41
  with their pressure, of their size, of their link. But you know,
• 17:44
  both players are really good. I think the important piece of it also
• 17:49
  is not to neglect who Yukon brings off the bench too, because John's he's
• 17:55
  a really good player. You know, their backup is a really good player.
• 17:59
  You know, he gets out in ball screen defense, he's active,
• 18:03
  he gets great, he does a great job on his flip up dunks.
• 18:06
  You know. He just they have a superb system. I love their system.
• 18:08
  I love what they do. They have purpose and what they do on
• 18:11
  both ends. But they everybody defends on that team, you know, like
• 18:17
  you're not allowed to play, right If you can't guard, you can't play.
• 18:19
  So it's like one of those deals like old school and but no,
• 18:25
  the Klingon is really good, like you know, he changes the game defensively
• 18:30
  but offensively. He's a good player too, you know. But he's he's
• 18:33
  just gonna keep coming. He's gonna be a fabulous player. He's got fifteen
• 18:36
  to twenty years in front of him. But don't take anything away from other
• 18:40
  guys on that front line, because they're all good players on the right side.
• 18:42
  Eddie, Hey, coach, Eddie Pearl's with ap or. I know
• 18:48
  we've you've heard you talk a lot about we're kind of born in an instant
• 18:52
  gratification world of college sports. Was there a time when you're either as a
• 19:00
  kid or a player as a coach where you just realize, like it's just
• 19:06
  kind of I can live with myself more if I'm honest with players as opposed
• 19:11
  to yeah, telling them whatever they want to get them over here. Yeah,
• 19:15
  no question about it. Like I would like break down things, and
• 19:19
  my assistance would like be like, if you keep going this route, we'll
• 19:23
  have nobody on our team. Like your honesty is like killing us. Like
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  and that was about ten twelve years ago, and I just said, yeah,
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  but when we get them, it's easier to coach them, you know.
• 19:38
  And so just like, like be a truth teller. I think there's
• 19:41
  a lot of people out there that understand that and feel that, but I
• 19:47
  just put the caveat on it. And the guys that cover us all the
• 19:49
  time has heard it a hundred times. But just if you become one of
• 19:53
  our top two or three scores, here's my vision for you. If you
• 19:57
  don't, then you're gonna have to be able from a role definition standpoint,
• 20:03
  fit around those guys offensively. So what happens in recruiting is you can have
• 20:07
  a two year relationship and you can talk about your role and not one time
• 20:11
  do they talk about defense. Pretty important part of the game. Huh.
• 20:15
  So if you get there and you can't handle pressure, and you can't play
• 20:18
  without turning it over because you handle pressure by just shooting before and then you
• 20:22
  can't guard your man or you don't even know what county he's in. You
• 20:27
  know, it's going to be really hard to play. You on a really
• 20:30
  good college basketball team. So you'll see like talented guys. That's why you
• 20:34
  see a lot of talented one and done guys. The guys that are one
• 20:37
  and done that come in that are like Carmelo Anthony, like they are rare.
• 20:41
  He functional win a national championship like that is hard. A lot of
• 20:45
  the one and done guys like on their talent, like they get there and
• 20:49
  now it's really hard for them because now they're being asked to do some things
• 20:53
  that they've never had to do. You see it a lot in the portal.
• 20:56
  You'll go get a load of mid major play that's averaged twenty points somewhere,
• 21:02
  and he's gonna come to your place. If he can stay in that
• 21:03
  role and average twenty points, he can have a little bit more rope,
• 21:07
  a little bit more freedom, because that's what a leading scorer gets. You
• 21:11
  don't like to say that, but that's just the truth. You know,
• 21:15
  it's just the way it is. You're gonna be able to play through your
• 21:18
  mistakes more when you can go get us twenty. But if that guy that
• 21:21
  averaged twenty at that level now comes to a high level and now he's going
• 21:25
  to average like four to ten points for you, Like, now, all
• 21:27
  the things you harp on is what the previous coach harped on. But he
• 21:32
  just kept him in the game because he needed his twenty points. Now I
• 21:36
  don't need some joker that's averaging five points for me to get beat back door
• 21:40
  on two different plays. It's like, hey man, get him out of
• 21:41
  there. Whereas the guy who gets beat back door that you know, averages
• 21:45
  twenty five, You're like, hey man, can we not get beat back
• 21:48
  door while he's running back down the court? Like you know. So that
• 21:53
  is the contradiction of coaching, right, That's it's just the way it is.
• 21:57
  But we all search for a role that's what we want. Like nobody
• 22:02
  says, hey man, I hope I can come to your place and play
• 22:03
  about ten minutes and set screens and rebound like you know, I mean,
• 22:07
  that'd be cool. You know, we'd like to welcome to the day.
• 22:11
  Is that this time, Mason Gillis and Fletcher Lawyer will join us from Purdue
• 22:15
  as well. Let's take a question in the third row, second seed in
• 22:19
  uh Matt Audie Joseph CBS Sports. What what do you see as the the
• 22:26
  backcourt size disadvantage that your team has in this championship game with Castle and Newman
• 22:32
  versus Brayden and Lands. You know, how do you how do you want
• 22:33
  to play into that? Does that change your strategy at all? Yeah,
• 22:37
  well, I think we have a disadvantage if they make poor decisions. I
• 22:41
  don't think it's a disadvantage if we make good decisions. You know, they
• 22:45
  swarm you, they get into you, they make it difficult on you.
• 22:48
  Don't put yourself in difficult scenarios. Take care of the basketball, run our
• 22:52
  stuff, you know, make good decisions. Those guys are really good at
• 22:56
  pressure. And Stephen Castle on down the line, you know when they saw
• 23:00
  they're good like all those guys can pressure, take care of the basketball,
• 23:03
  make good decisions, run what we've called and stick with that. If we
• 23:07
  do those things, you know you'll have success. What they do a great
• 23:14
  job of is when blood's in the water, when you show weakness or you
• 23:18
  turn your back on pressure, or you dribble in place. You know,
• 23:22
  you leave your feet, you don't play on two feet. Those guys are
• 23:25
  the best in the business that they will make you pay. And like I
• 23:29
  said earlier, that's that's two or three points at the end at the other
• 23:32
  end of the court. So I think that's important for us, and that's
• 23:34
  our challenge. Just handle pressure, take care of the basketball, make good
• 23:37
  decisions because they'll get into you and they're solid, but they're just waiting for
• 23:41
  you to do something stupid. Don't do something stupid. Back left, Dana,
• 23:48
  hold the microphone out please so Dana can take it. Thank you,
• 23:52
  Dana. Onio the athletic Matt you talked about the turnovers. I guess you
• 23:55
  know the glass half empty is that they turned it over the glass half full
• 23:59
  as you got through it. Just the evolution of this team's composure this season.
• 24:03
  How has it worked out and kind of where are they in it?
• 24:06
  Do you think? Right? I thought we did a good job of kind
• 24:10
  of playing through it. We offset it by going ten for twenty five from
• 24:14
  three. So you throw a five for twenty five on top of that,
• 24:17
  you get beat. And that's where we've lost in the past. We've lost
• 24:19
  in the past because of high turnovers, high volume of threes in low percentage.
• 24:25
  We can take a high volume of threes in a low percentage and then
• 24:27
  have eight turnovers and still win a game, but we can't do the three
• 24:32
  for twenty three and the seventeen turnovers. That's a recipe for disaster. So
• 24:36
  like they understand that, I've talked those numbers to them the whole season.
• 24:40
  But it's also the functionality of play, like being able to handle someone's pressure,
• 24:44
  being able to take care of the basketball. And you know, we
• 24:45
  had a couple of elementary turnovers. We overdid our dribbling a couple times.
• 24:51
  Are spacing wasn't good in a couple of those scenarios. That was on me
• 24:53
  in terms of our post action and what we do when the ball goes inside.
• 24:59
  But like we've played, you know, this whole season and we've seen
• 25:02
  a lot of different looks. I think this is the this is the biggest
• 25:06
  challenge for us on the biggest stage, and that's what you want, like
• 25:08
  you know, you want to be able to do that, and like I
• 25:11
  said earlier, just being functional on what we do is the most important up
• 25:17
  from the left side, Admira Matt In the climate where a lot of bigs
• 25:22
  want to be versatile, don't want to be called centers, how hard is
• 25:25
  it to find guys like Zach Edy in the current climate. Yeah, it's
• 25:29
  very difficult because most big guys that are that size aren't very good at basketball.
• 25:33
  You know, if you go look at the numbers across the board,
• 25:37
  you know, like how many other players are good at seven four three hundred,
• 25:40
  But there's not very many of them out there period, you know.
• 25:44
  So you know, we we we scour the earth for size, you know,
• 25:48
  we we try to go out there and get it because it's it's proven
• 25:52
  if you can work with it. I think we have a great assistant in
• 25:55
  Brandon Brantley that's done a great job with those guys. That gives a lot
• 25:59
  of time and film an individual instruction, and then you got to you got
• 26:03
  to offset it with skills. So like both of these guys to my right,
• 26:07
  you know, just didn't come to Purdue and learn how to shoot.
• 26:08
  Like these guys were great shooters before they're they're they're So if you can get
• 26:14
  high level competitors that are skilled, both of these guys are very, very
• 26:18
  competitive. But they're also maniacal in their work. So it's not something I
• 26:22
  got to check on because I found out that's who they are no matter what.
• 26:25
  So like if they wouldn't went to another school, they would still work
• 26:27
  on their game. Right. A lot of times people say, through our
• 26:30
  development and we did this, and we did this. I think that's bullshit,
• 26:34
  you know, a lot of times like these guys did it, Like
• 26:37
  give them credit. It's a player's game, you know, And I think
• 26:41
  that's an important piece to really embrace in coaching. I'm yet to see somebody
• 26:45
  come up here and get interviewed all the time with bad players, right,
• 26:51
  right, it's a it's a player's game, and these guys are great players.
• 26:52
  They're good, but we also have to piece it together. You know.
• 26:56
  They sacrifice too, like they can do more than they actually do.
• 27:00
  But they're playing with a guy that now they get role definitions. So Fletch
• 27:04
  might get twelve rips at it, he might get six. You know.
• 27:08
  Mason has games where he shoots the all two or three times. Sometimes he
• 27:11
  shoots the all seven or eight times. If you want to let him play
• 27:14
  one on one, we'll play one on one. If you don't, then
• 27:17
  we're going to pass the ball. But they need to pass the basketball too,
• 27:19
  and they pass it way more than he does, and rightfully so.
• 27:22
  But that's just it's in a system that they know that they can flourish in,
• 27:26
  and we feel that they can flourish in. Now when he moves and
• 27:30
  we change like how that you know you know that that's the difference, But
• 27:36
  we won games before that too. We have a number of questions for Coach
• 27:40
  Painter in only a few more minutes, but we do need to get one
• 27:42
  in for the student athletes from Purdue. If you have a question for Mason,
• 27:45
  we'll go to Zach in the center of the room or Fletcher Zach Brazili
• 27:52
  if you're a post for either of the player. You obviously have played a
• 27:56
  lot of very good teams this year. Is there any what you've played that
• 28:00
  you would say is comparable to Yukon or are they in a class by themselves
• 28:04
  in terms of your opponents this year? Then, Fletcher, I don't know
• 28:11
  necessarily how to classify them in their own kind of class, but they won
• 28:15
  the national championship last year. They deserve their respect that they've gotten, and
• 28:22
  we've done our work to get here. They've done their work to get here.
• 28:25
  And the thing about the game that we have Monday is that it's two
• 28:29
  great programs, two great coaches, two great coaches going at it, and
• 28:33
  the players are going to do their best. That's what we can do.
• 28:34
  We don't necessarily worry about comparing them to other teams. It's just where they
• 28:41
  have to do our job. Fletcher, Yeah, kind of like Mason said,
• 28:45
  you don't really compare them. You kind of compare your what you're going
• 28:48
  to bring to the table, how you're going to get ready to play.
• 28:49
  You got to get ready as if it's to win the Big Ten, as
• 28:52
  if it's it's to win the National championship, bigger stage. So just getting
• 28:56
  ourselves ready. Obviously they're a great team. They've made it here second year
• 29:00
  in a row. That's very impressive, and so giving them the respect,
• 29:03
  but making sure we're ready to go. This will be the final question for
• 29:07
  this session. To the left Israel Schumann from the Purdue Exponent. Matt,
• 29:11
  you brought in a new strength and conditioning coach a couple of years ago,
• 29:15
  Jason Cabo did. What did he bring you know, in terms of impact
• 29:19
  and what is he kind of changed with the way you guys prepare physically,
• 29:22
  then Mason can also wig on this. No, he's done a great job.
• 29:27
  You know, he has good rapport with our guys. Very experienced,
• 29:32
  you know, been in the background, has worked with a lot of high
• 29:33
  level college guys, high level pros. Being at UNLV. You know,
• 29:38
  a few NBA players go through Vegas in the off season, guys. I
• 29:41
  don't know if you knew that, but like he's worked with a lot of
• 29:45
  different people at a very very high level. These guys can speak on I
• 29:49
  can let Mason speak on it because they work directly with them and you know,
• 29:55
  but more than anything of just having a good rapport with guys and trying
• 29:59
  to help them in their own situation. There's a lot of things that are
• 30:02
  similar in what we do with each guy, but there's a lot of differences,
• 30:06
  right like what Zachi and he does and what Fletch does, There's going
• 30:08
  to be some differences. I think that's the key thing is to help each
• 30:12
  guy, you know, improve their strengths and their weaknesses. Sometimes guys just
• 30:17
  want to dive into what they struggle in. When there's some things in the
• 30:21
  weight room that our strengths. You know, you don't want to keep enhancing.
• 30:23
  Go ahead, nice, you want it. Nathon to take that too.
• 30:26
  Like coach said, his experience has shown over the two years. I
• 30:30
  think whenever he first came into our program, he did a good job of
• 30:33
  learning who we were, learning how to work with us, and like coach
• 30:37
  said, everybody's different, and so anytime you're new to a program you have
• 30:41
  to learn that. I think he did a good job of going to each
• 30:44
  of us, talking to each of us, figuring out our weaknesses, figuring
• 30:48
  out our strengths, and we've grown with that. Over the coach of the
• 30:52
  two years that he's been with us, he's really been able to isolate what
• 30:56
  Zach needs to do a couple of days before the game to get him feeling
• 31:00
  the best. He has learned what I need to do, whether that's more
• 31:03
  on some days less on some days, specific exercises and things like that.
• 31:08
  Like Coach talked about, he's been around, He's been through things, and
• 31:11
  it always helps when you've seen things personally, you can't compare anything to real
• 31:18
  life experience, and him bringing that into our culture, it just helps us,
• 31:22
  helps us grow and he's a good guy too. He's able to converse
• 31:26
  with us outside of the locker room. He's had us over to his house
• 31:30
  to have food, and so he's done his best, his best to get
• 31:33
  us here to the National Championship. We'd like to thank Mason, Fletcher,
• 31:37
  and Coach Painter for joining us here in the main interview room. Mason and
• 31:41
  Fletcher and other of purdues starting five will join us in the breakout area and
• 31:48
  just a few moments at twelve twenty, that's to my right and you're left. The produce