Notes: Matt Painter's Big Ten Media Day spiel

INDIANAPOLIS — Friday, Matt Painter took his turn at the podium — a very short podium for him, awkwardly — at Big Ten Media Day at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

A quick summary of what he said. You can listen to the (crude) audio below, as well.

Painter was asked about maybe playing Zach Edey and Trevion Williams together, and said that the lineups' viability would be dependent on Williams' ability to guard the 4.

"If he can do that, he's going to put some people in binds," Painter said, "because that doesn't mean Trevion is floating on the perimeter, because we're going to go post up that 4 man."

He said too that though the Big Ten as a conference generally doesn't play much zone, he'd expect a Williams-Edey pairing to get zoned. Purdue's offensive approach would be to use Williams at the elbow or otherwise away from the basket and play high-low, and to still generate post-ups for him against the opposition's presumably smaller forward.

"The problem with college basketball people saying It's tougher to play big," Painter said, "Is that most peoples' big guys aren't very good. That's just the way it is, especially with backups."

On Zach Edey: "He causes a lot of problems. He causes a lot of problems for us in practice. I don't really have a good answer every day for how to deal with him.

"He's really improved. He's very, very good."

With a roster that might be his deepest ever at Purdue — still a might until proven — Painter proactively brought up some of the challenges that might come with that.

"We're going to have to have some sacrifices with our team, like any team that's successful," Painter said. "The keys don't come down to talent. They come down to the production that comes from that talent, and the sacrifices you have to make to be on a team, and that's hard to do.

"I think what happens when you get picked to become one of the better teams, your management of that becomes really crucial in terms of your success. We don't want to have a celebration in October or November. We want to be in the position they're saying we should be in late February and March, competing for a Big Ten championship and getting a low number next to our name.

"But we have to earn that every single day and do a lot of little things so you're program can be successful."

Last season, Purdue experienced a surprising level of success with a freshman-heavy team, finishing fourth in the Big Ten and finishing 18-10.

But those final two losses stung — one-and-dones in both the Big Ten Tournament and NCAA Tournament, the latter to double-digit-seeded North Texas.

"You see a lot of teams that are favored get knocked off in the NCAA Tournament and then that team fragments," Painter said. "They're not the same team the next year. We have some new players, but we have a lot of familiar faces on our team. That's what we've talked about, learning from that and putting ourselves in an even better position. The answer to that question really comes in your actions moving forward, but I use Virginia as an example, after they got knocked off In the first round a couple years ago, then turned around and won the national title.

"That was a devastating loss for them, but obviously they used it as motivation and won the national championship. We have to use it as motivation."

• Painter said that freshman Brian Waddell not attracting any other high-major offers out of Carmel High School "kind of blows my mind."

Waddell will redshirt this season, but has been impressive all summer and fall, by every account.

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