The following is an excerpt from an interview that GoldandBlack.com's Brian Neubert and Alan Karpick conducted with Purdue men’s basketball coach Matt Painter on a segment of Gold and Black LIVE on Friday, Oct. 4.
GoldandBlack.com: What are you seeing from your guys right now?
Painter: Obviously we’re going to have some changes just like we had last year. We lost four starters (after 2017-18), now you lose three starters, and just trying to really find our way. I think it’s a hard time of the year for a lot of coaches, putting the things in, trying to have a foundation.
The practices in the summer and fall help you, so when you still have some guys that are picking up on some things. Twenty years ago (when practice didn’t used to start until Oct. 15) it wasn’t that big of a deal.
You’re in your second week now, the things we talk about aren’t things we just started talking about last week. We’ve been talking about them all summer and all fall, now some guys are going to have to start picking up on these things. They’re going to have to be able to be really good at it. It’s the one thing in football that you hear all the time, “get your nose in the playbook, know what’s going on, know you’re responsibilities.” Sometimes in basketball, that gets lost a little bit because it’s more of a free flowing game. You never just say “Hey we’re going to drop back for a pass, we’re going to run motion, we’re going to do this we’re going to do that.” Basketball is more of a free flowing game. So guys don’t know what they’re doing all the time, especially on the offensive end.
We’re not that way, we’re different. We run a lot of stuff, we do a lot of things and it’s harder to pick up. The class goes on. You always teach up to the class in the game of basketball. If you’re going to teach down to the class it better be your best players and they better be unbelievable talents. So right now, that’s what we’re trying to kind of figure out. Who’s going to fit in places, who can handle and take in a lot of intel, and go out there and be productive.
I like our team’s experience, our guys who are returning, we’re trying to get balance with some of those younger guys. We’re having some growing pains right now, but hopefully we can work through it and have a great season.
GoldandBlack.com: Are you treating this team like an experienced team or a less experienced team?
Painter: I would say somewhere in between. That’s (Brian’s question) a good way of putting it. I think you treat individuals differently, but you have to collaborate. It has to be a collective approach when it gets to plan five guys at a time and having that flow, having that rhythm, having that balance.
Right now (as a team) we’re not in a great position in terms of doing our job. But we weren’t in a great position last year in terms of doing our job at this time of the year. Being accountable on the defensive end, understanding the details of what we’re trying to do offensively, so that’s what we really have to grow into. We need some of those guys to really step up and have that experience and to be a solid force. I think a lot of times you go from one season to the other and you learn a lot about it, but then in that six months you forget a lot about it too. You take Algebra 1, and you go to Algebra 2 and start Algebra 2 in the first six weeks of it, you’re like “I’ve been through this, we did this last year.” No, you start again and now you have that refresher for six weeks. Now, that second six weeks of the semester, that’s when you start that new stuff. If you start with new stuff right away, what you learned before you lost a little bit. So that’s coaching, that’s the slippage that you have from year to year. Hopefully we can pick up. With our schedule, we start off right away. The teams that we’re playing in November and December, we have some really good competition so we have to be ready. It’s going to be an important part of the season.
GoldandBlack.com: This is your 15th coaching at Purdue and your 16th overall. Do you benchmark this year differently?
Painter: I’m always concerned, I’m that guy. Even two years ago, we had a lot of experience. I was concerned at that time, a different concern. As a coach, you always have those concerns. You’re always worried and I’m just that way. So you do get into a little bit of a pattern. You have a better understanding.
Sometimes our guys will treat it like “it’s early in the season, it’s not big deal.” I think it’s a big deal. We have to have everybody on the same page. We’re going to be in a position, people just think “win the game, win the game” but it’s not beating yourself. If you’re in practice and you’re constantly beating yourself you know that isn’t going to hold up (or help you as you grow as a team).
That’s kind of where we are right now and I would expect there’s a lot of people that way. We really helped ourselves last year. We had a lot of offensive rebounds, we took care of the basketball, we had a cohesive group, so those are the things and the staples you need to have on any team.
GoldandBlack.com: Did you sense last year that you had some struggles and you might struggle a little early on?
Painter: We were in a lot of games. Outside of Notre Dame, I thought those are all winnable games. Obviously we didn’t win them, in the non-conference. Obviously the Michigan game (in early December) wasn’t a winnable game in my opinion. We just didn’t play well. We weren’t ready to compete like a Big Ten game at that time of the year.
We were very fortunate to win the game at home against Maryland. We played really well defensively. At the end of that game, the last five minutes, that was a very important game for us. You like to learn from some of those experiences and understand those things, but unfortunately you have to relearn a lot of things too.
GoldandBlack.com: Are Matt Haarms and Nojel Eastern potentially some of the better leaders you’ve had at Purdue?
Painter: They’ve been able to sacrifice up to this point. A lot of times as you grow into where you are as a junior, maybe you didn’t have quite the roles that those two guys have had for us. Those two guys have been big parts of our team and have done a lot of things to help us win, especially the defensive end.
We have an all defensive player on our front line and in our back court. That’s a good place to start. Just looking for those guys to be solid and be steady and do their job and lead by example. I think both of them will have great years.
GoldandBlack.com: They both seem like good people. They both seem like charismatic people, they both seem to want to do it.
Painter: No doubt. They’re about winning, they understand what we’ve accomplished here and they understand (all) the sacrifices that they’ve made and (the importance of knowing) that’s what you do. Even though your role might expand some, you still make the same type of sacrifices and have the same type of approach.
GoldandBlack.com: Recruiting wise, are the challenges harder in making sure the prospects you are seeking are a good fit for Purdue?
Painter: It’s always some work. It’s always going to be some work. That’s your job to evaluate that and to have an accurate assessment. It doesn’t mean that you’re 100 percent (successful) in that area but you try to be and you try to get things to where you feel someone fits your style, fits on your campus, and fits in your locker room. I think our staff has done a really good job with that.
Sometimes you target people that you simply don’t get. The problem sometimes is navigating when you don’t get who you want and now you want to be thorough with those guys as you move forward.
GoldandBlack.com: How is Trevion Williams doing in terms of where you want him to be?
Painter: He’s doing well. He’s a big part of our practices, whether we’re playing big or playing small. We haven’t played big a lot in practice because Matt’s been out a lot with a concussion. He just got back yesterday (Oct. 3) for practice.
“He gets a lot of rebounds, he’s good passer, good scorer on the post, we’re trying to get him the basketball and give him more opportunities, but also trying to get him to be able to be able to play more quality minutes. We need him to play more than 13 to 15 minutes a game. We have to get him to 20-25 minutes a game.(He has to) just continue to work.
If I had to play Matt Haarms 40 minutes in a game, he could do it. I don’t know if it’s the smartest thing for the long haul, but he can definitely play 30 minutes for the long haul. Trevion couldn’t play 30 minutes at this point. So when you’re talented and you can rebound the way he can rebound and you can do the things you need to do, you want to be able to get that production from him, but you also want to be smart about it as a coach. So we’re doing our part, trying to get him into shape. I can guarantee you that.
GoldandBlack.com: How have the freshman adjusted to what’s been going on?
Painter: They’ve been okay. The guys that I always try to focus on are the people that were freshman for us last year and now are sophomores. Those guys are way more important in terms of how we’re going to do this season.
(The incoming) freshmen get talked about more because they haven’t been seen. What gets lost from a fan standpoint is you get a guy that comes in and redshirts for a year, then plays a role and comes off the bench and you think that’s who he is and that’s not who he is. Once he can get that opportunity, he can really take off and grow. So that’s really (relevant) from Sasha Stefanovic to Aaron Wheeler to Eric Hunter and Trevion Williams. Those guys are really important for our program because now if they can make that big jump as sophomores, you can really grow with that group. You havethem for three years together and that’s what builds championships and that’s what builds success.
GoldandBlack.com: Would you like to redshirt anyone this year just to kind of manage the numbers?
Painter: We’ll see. For us, we’ve had one guy miss four practices from a concussion (Haarms). We’ve had another guy miss two-three practices with a sprained ankle. That was something, Mason Gillis came in, not playing any last year. Evan Boudreaux had an injury through the summer. There were a couple other injuries just like Evan, so at this time we say no (we won’t redshirt anyone).
I don’t like to publicly really talk about it unless there’s an obvious (choice to redshirt). There’s not an obvious at this point, because I think everyone should be battling the play. I think once you get to that first scrimmage and that exhibition, now you start to have a better feel where, we can get into this eight man rotation, this nine man rotation. A couple guys are going to be on the outside looking in. Nobody likes that, but there’s a lot of people that would like to have Ryan Cline and Grady Eifert right now.
It’s hard to say in five years, I always say “Am I going to be the coach in five years?” That’s the way, as a coach, you’re really looking (on focusing) to the season. Recruiting, you look two to three years down the road but you also know how competitive it is. It’s a very difficult thing because you want to be able to use your guys and use all your guys and just try to win that season.
When in reality from a program standpoint, sometimes if you pump your brakes, take a step back, and some guy plays 10-12 minutes, you take some of the people that played 10-12 minutes for us last year, if we wouldn’t have played them, would we have won more games? Would we have lost more games? would it have been the same? A lot of time you look back in hindsight and say “It probably would have been the same.”
That’s part of coaching and trying to piece things together.
GoldandBlack.com: Gene Keady always hit on how, as a coach he was always uncomfortable, you’re always concerned. Is that your MO as a person? Has that changed you in 15 years?
Painter: Not really (it hasn’t changed over the last 15 years). It’s (still) more of your concern and always thinking how somebody is going to get you from a recruiting standpoint, how somebody is going to beat you in a game. You’re always trying to get it figured out. What normal people don’t understand is the more you win, the more that builds. When you lose games, there’s some obvious things. It’s substantial. When you lose a game by 17 points and you watch the film, it’s pretty easy to see the breakdown. It’s not a hard thing to figure out. When you win games and that starts to build, it doesn’t feel like “we won five in a row.” It builds to “We need to win the next one.” You win that one, then you have to win the next one. You have to try to get yourself emotionally where you’re not that way(always looking over your shoulder), but that’s a tough thing to do.
GoldandBlack.com: How do you see Bill 206 out in California changing things?
Painter: It’s a different stance in terms of it’s coming from a state. We all know that the game of basketball is going to get legislated through everybody. When it comes from one state, it’s a really hard thing to be able to totally take in (yet_ as a coach in the position that I’m in.
We want to continue to do things to help our student athletes. We do have a model that’s set up (as it currently stands) where there’s a lot of money that’s generated. Obviously coaches get paid too much money and it creates problems. Anytime you have coaches that go from college to pro and pro to college and it goes over a 30-year span, they are going to go (from a negotiation standpoint) against each other, there’s a lot of money that takes place.
I think some of the things that get lost is opportunity. There’s great opportunity in college sports. I’m sitting in this position because the opportunity that I had and the scholarship that I got, I’m at Purdue. Are there some specific guys that play the Glenn Robinsons, the Drew Brees, Johnny Manziel, Adrian Peterson, they just come in and they’re branded in everything that they do. It’s unbelievable and it’s really kind of priceless (the worth of guys like that). It’s hard to put a dollar figure on that. They generate a lot of money for people.
I averaged four points (per game) in college, I don’t think I can generate that much money. With that being said, we have to continue to do more for our student athletes and give them more. I like the idea like some guys got a jersey and his name is on the back of that jersey. He gets 10-20 percent (of that revenue) and then that guy gets that money when he’s in his mid-30s and it goes into a trust. Something like that.
I know if you gave me $40,000 and I was 20, I wouldn’t have it when I was 21. I know that. That piece of it, sometimes money can be the root of all evil and that’s where we kind of are with all of this. Money isn’t going to solve your problems. But is there a lot of money generated by these athletes playing? Yes there is.
We got to figure out a way to do more for our student athletes, but also be smart about it. We do have a model (in college basketball) that’s set up where these guys can go play professionally (including overseas). We do have that in place. So there’s a lot of things in there, and hopefully we can find some middle ground and do what’s best for everybody.
GoldandBlack.com: With Jeff Brohm going through all the injuries he’s dealing with right now, how do you think he gets through that? How do you deal with that as a coach?
Painter: It’s difficult.
I watched David Teague tear his ACL in practice, I watched Carl Landry tear his ACL against Minnesota, I watched Robbie Hummel tear his ACL against Minnesota, I watched Robbie Hummel tear his ACL in practice. You go through those stretches and you think about the timeline of that during my experience. That’s (all of the aforementioned injuries occurred in) like five years right there. In a short amount of time, knock on wood, those things happen.
But now we haven’t had any of those. Things kind of go in those spurts and it’s very, very difficult. When you’re a fan a little bit (as I am of our football team), and you get into that second, third, fourth year and you get thin in positions and you’re linebacker goes out, your quarterback goes out, your do it all (goes out, Rondale Moore), your senior running back, if they go out, you have a lineman that hasn’t played yet. You have too many key pieces there in those next guys, that is difficult.
(As a coach) You want to start over, you want to go back to the first day and start back over in the summer, like okay, this is who we’re going to have. We’re not going to have those guys and now that gives you a chance. It doesn’t guarantee it but it gives you a chance. When it happens on the fly, that is very, very difficult.
With different guys, sometimes different pieces, you’re trying to get some quality out there with them and it makes it very difficult. Sometimes fans don’t realize when those two big pieces leave, in one play; that is just bad, bad luck.
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