Notebook: Wednesday at the South Regional in Louisville

LOUISVILLE — As Purdue prepares to meet Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16 Thursday, it met with the media Wednesday at the KFC Yum! Center.

Some notes from today in Louisville, as well as Tuesday's media availability at Purdue.

Fresh off a 42-point game against Villanova, Carsen Edwards is a headliner of sorts at this Regional.

During his press conference Wednesday, he echoed one of his coach's staple phrases when describing how he's aiming to play in the NCAA Tournament: "Patiently aggressive."

"I approach every game being patiently aggressive," Edwards said, "and trying to make the best decision for my team. ... I just know that I just try to do the right thing for my team, just help my team win and put ourselves in the best situations."

When asked after the Villanova game if he'd been "sick" of hearing about shooting percentages and such, he said, "I still am."

The message from Purdue, whether it be Edwards, Coach Matt Painter or whoever, during this NCAA Tournament has been more about decisions than shots, per se. Edwards has said he's played the same way through two very good NCAA Tournament games as he has all season.

“I don’t look at it as shooting with him as much as decision-making," Painter said. "I thought he made a lot of really good decisions. Now, he had some things go his way, but he’s worked hard on his shot. When things go the other way and he struggles, when he has good misses, I’m not upset about that. But when he has tough misses, especially when he struggles and then shoots them early in the shot clock, those are the ones we have to have back. You’re not setting the flow of a game if you’re constantly on defense and they’re constantly on offense. That’s not how basketball works. You have to be able to make them earn things on offense and play long possessions on defense, especially in the NCAA Tournament.”

Following the NCAA Tournament, long-time assistant coach Greg Gary will leave to become the new head coach at Mercer, which Purdue's players celebrated by giving him the water bucket treatment in the locker room.

"He's been with us for eight years and he's done a really good job," Coach Matt Painter said. "It's not something he hasn't done before. He's been a Division I head coach before at Centenary (before it dropped out of D-I). He has experience being a head coach. It's a great academic school and they've had success in the past in basketball.

"He'll be missed here. He did a really good job here, obviously running our offense. I just talked to our team about it, that, 'When we do things well as a team, individuals are going to have success, and that goes for coaches too.' There's yet to be a really good coach with bad players. When you have a success as a coach, people think highly of you because of the production of your team' and our players have done a really good job this year and sacrificed, and it's great to see our guys have individual success, but also for G to get this opportunity."

Painter was asked by local media about this winter's decision by Purdue football coach Jeff Brohm to turn down Louisville and remain with the Boilermakers.

Purdue's basketball coach said he didn't talk to Brohm about it while it was going on, but did send him a text message afterward to "thank him" for remaining at Purdue.

Brohm and his son, Brady, have been presences around the basketball program, attending NCAA Tournament games last year and again this year, making the trip to Hartford for the Old Dominion game. Brohm, who grew up in Louisville, is likely to attend Thursday night's game against Tennessee, incidentally the other school that has tried to hire him away from Purdue already.

"He's a good guy too," Painter said at the dais. "He's a big basketball fan so he comes around a lot and watches a lot of games, him and his son. I think that's cool. It's exciting. I think the one thing that the sport of football will do for your school is it ties all your sports together, because that's an event that you can always bring recruits to. And so, you know, to play that exciting brand of football and move the ball around and obviously Rondale Moore helps with a little bit of that too. You've got to have the guys to throw it to.

"But it's very similar to the buzz that we had at Purdue when Joe Tiller had it going with Drew Brees. It's pretty exciting, but obviously, as an institution and as someone who works at Purdue, we were thrilled that he stayed."

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