Matt Painter Show Highlights | 11/14/22

In reference to Purdue’s struggles offensively against Austin Peay:

Both teams we played were pretty athletic and I thought they had good size. I thought Austin Peay’s two big guys were pretty good players, but I thought our defense was better...we have a young team and a lot of times with a young team they play through their offense. The fact that we kept playing, we kept defending, and we were able to grind out that victory. There is a tendency to kind of fall into that trap when you struggle to shoot the ball, you get down on yourself, you don’t have the energy that you need, and I thought our guys were pretty good at that.”

Analysis: It was good to see Purdue continue to go to the well that was Zach Edey against Austin Peay when the entirety of the team struggled to shoot the ball. What Coach Painter is speaking on here is something he has often spoken about when the ball doesn’t go in for some players that they allow that to have an effect on their defensive effort and intensity. The Austin Peay game was a good one to have to show Purdue can ride Edey for an entire game as long as those other aspects are not impacted.

In reference to Edey’s shot attempts (he’s had 13 in each of the first two games):

“We are missing Zach Edey a lot. We’ve got guys that can pass and know what is going on that are just missing him. Guys just aren’t used to passing into the post because they are young...”

“I think there’s a lot of variables that go into it. If you give it like a hard number and say ‘Hey you know you want to shoot 15 times’ sometimes it’s not going to be there. Maybe he’s just going to pass all the time. What you want to do is make the right decision; so if they’re going to stay one on one, we want to be aggressive and score. If they’re going to double we want him to take his time in and pass out of that double team and get them in rotations; so I don’t like getting to a number and say, ‘Hey I want you to take 20 shots or 25 shots or 15 shots or whatever it might be,’ because now you get into just doing something and not really reading things and making good decisions. Zach’s done a good job rebounding, that’s the one thing you can always do; you can always rebound, you can always defend, can always run the floor, and always do the little things and communicate. Sometimes the other parts especially scoring there’s just not as many opportunities in certain games.”

Analysis: Edey is going to be option 1, 2, and 3 when he is on the floor offensively. That is going to be especially true early in a game so that coaches can determine how an opponent is going to defend Zach. Zach has shown a better ability to determine what he needs to do when the ball is entered into the post, especially when an opponent send a double team which requires Zach to find the open man on the arc for a pass.

In reference to Zach Edey being the focal point on offense:

“I go recruiting a lot and I see things and I’ll be like, ‘you know what this team needs; a speech on who the best player is.’ Obviously the guy I’m going to see is normally the best player and so you’ll go and be at a high school game and a high school team really understands that this guy is the best player; they just have to understand that with Zach that’s it; they’ll say ‘I threw the ball inside 6 times’ well throw it in 12 times. Make them defend him, make them cover that and now when they do, things are just going to open up for you and you’re going to get so many more opportunities because of that.”

Analysis: It bares repeating, doesn’t it? Edey is the most dominate player in the country this year. There is nobody in the college game that can defend him effectively one on one for 40 minutes if he is able to establish position inside 8 feet of the bucket. That kind of player deserves the get the ball 20-30 times a game.

In reference to Fletcher Loyer’s minutes, shooting, and lack of turnovers:

“That’s great because like he gets the ball inside also he hasn’t shot it well yet. I know he had that one half in the second half of the first game against Milwaukee; really shot it well but really once he gets going and gets into a rhythm <he> has the ability to be a game-changer.”
“I have confidence in him he’s a good player, you know. You just have to have the understanding of time and score; you have to have the understanding of where you are and who you are; but if we have to just kind of keep things in check in terms of understanding when to go, when not to go, when to takes shots, when not to take shots but we’re getting good shots; like the shots that Fletch took. He’s probably had two shots he’s taken so far that I felt like he probably shouldn’t have taken but for the most part I like the ones he’s taking.”

Analysis: The trust that Coach Painter shows in Loyer is well deserved and he is a player who has the skills and the IQ to be an incredibly high value player at Purdue. Can he counter the physicality of the B1G with that savviness and moxy that drew Painter to him? Up to this point, all signs point to yes.

In reference to Edey’s improvement on the defensive end (6 blocked shots against Milwaukee):

“I think he is definitely better in on ball screen defense. He really works at it. I think he also gets a little bit of a stigma, you know sometimes you are that big and he struggles with this and with that, he is actually one our best rebounders we have had here. He does a really good job rebounding out of his area. I don’t think it’ll be something where is is consistently blocking shots like that but I think he’ll have games like that throughout the year where he blocks shots. And even when you don’t block shots, if you can alter some things that definitely helps.”

“Sometimes its good to just get big and wall up and make people score over you and then you have the chance to get the rebound as well.”

Analysis: The improvement in Edey’s defensive ability this season has been apparent. He seems to understand the defensive concepts better but I think mobile big men who can shoot from 3 will really give him fits at times. The key for Edey is really the other four guys on the court communicating and playing together.

In reference to on ball screen defense:

“It’s really your start. If you come up and you are moving and they are attacking you while you are coming up into things, it’s really, really hard. If you can get set and level things off and get them into more pull ups and tough 2’s and really drop with your man. We have gone to a drop ball screen coverage where you are encouraging them (the offense) to take that tough pull up versus getting all the way to the rim. That’s why you see a lot of those flip-up lobs now. Because people are in drops and those bigs that dive and get behind them, and now they can lob right over their head. It takes some precision and timing on those passes. But guys work on it but it’s better (drop coverage).”

“Ball screen defense is not two people. It’s not the on ball defender and the big guy, it’s all five people. You’ve got to get some help from some people and that’s the one thing the drop does is if it’s played correctly and it doesn’t get exposed, now you don’t have to help on that drop/dive guy because he doesn’t get behind you. So now those players that raise out of the corners from behind, they can stay with their guy and not give any help to that because you don’t need to...Does Zach need my help here? Does he not need my help here? Sometimes when you play teams that are not that skilled, you just give a lot of help. When you play teams that are more skilled, you want to show a lot of help but you aren’t going to give much because you don’t want to give those penetration kick threes.”

Analysis: This is great insight from Coach Painter on the team’s philosophy on how they look to defend the high ball screens that Purdue has struggled with the last few seasons. Like Edey has done so well on the offensive end in establishing position early to get easy buckets, he has to do the work early in a possession to not put himself in a bad position and being behind a play. That’s hard because of his size and especially harder when things get rushed late in a shot clock but like Coach Painter said, sometimes the best thing you can do is just wall up and be big.