#7 Purdue’s Painter Professes Problems On Defense

There is no use in sugar-coating it: Purdue’s defensive effort in their loss to Wisconsin was unacceptable.

The visiting Badgers scored 58 second-half points en route to their fourth consecutive victory. More crucial, their 94-84 verdict over Purdue left Boilermakers head coach Matt Painter searching for elusive answers about his team’s ability to make stops on the defensive end.

Immediately following the loss, Painter addressed the media about his team’s performance.

Purdue Did Not Pressure Wisconsin Enough

According to Painter, the Boilermakers did not apply enough pressure to make life difficult for Wisconsin, but he admitted the Badgers had a lot to do with that.

“I (liked) Wisconsin’s resolve and their toughness and their decision-making,” Painter conceded. “Their ability to break us down off the dribble and take us, I thought was really hard for us. We had to do a better job guarding the basketball and we just didn’t. And when you’re living in help (defense), now you’re really — if you don’t get them bottled up, that ball’s going to move quick. When you’re dealing with one of the best shooting teams in the country, they’re going to make you pay and they made us pay.

“You’re dealing with the best free throw shooting team in the country, one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country — when you get behind plays and you don’t contain the dribble, you’re stuck.”

Painter lamented that Purdue’s inability to keep Wisconsin out of the three-second lane was a key factor in the second half when the Badgers shot 72% from the field.

“When you outrebound somebody and have 21 assists to four turnovers, you’re putting yourself in a pretty good spot. When you don’t turn the other team over at all and you only outrebound them by two, you’re even. So, who’s going to shoot the basketball better?”

One defensive stat that stood out for Painter was Purdue’s inability to register consistent stops defensively. The Boilermakers call three consecutive stops on the defensive end “kills,” and getting them usually coincides with winning or losing a game.

“We always talk about five, six, seven kills — a kill is three stops in a row,” Painter explained. “If you can get to five, you’re normally going to be alright. If you can get to six, you’re probably going to win. By seven, you’re probably going to dominate somebody. Those kills allow you to go on runs.

“We had zero kills tonight. In the first half, we got our kills to two shutouts four different times, we could never get to three in a row, and that’s where you see the lack of separation. We should have separated at that time, but in their defense, they didn’t allow that. They did a good job of continuing to score and they were better than us.”

Unfortunately for the Boilers, Wisconsin shot nearly ten percentage points better than Purdue (61.5% compared to 51.8%) for the game.

Where Does Purdue Go From Here?

Like it or not, the Big 10 schedule keeps treadmilling on unceasingly. Purdue cannot afford to wallow in their misery for too long; they have a date in East Lansing to meet #11 Michigan State on Tuesday night.

Painter has experienced enough of the ups and downs of a college basketball season in his 20 years as head coach to understand the need for patience. He knows the grind of a five-month season is a marathon, not a sprint, but Painter also realizes the need for his team to rebound from two straight setbacks.

“You just move to the next game, whether you win or you lose,” said Painter plainly. Obviously, you want to take care of your home court and we didn’t do that today. We’ve had a couple losses at home now. You have to regroup, you’ve got to be better. A lot of times, what it gets to is just being better at what you do.”

Michigan State is coming off a huge road win against Illinois on Saturday, one that made Tom Izzo the winningest head coach in Big 10 history. Game time for Tuesday’s matchup is 7 pm ET, and it will be broadcast nationally via Peacock.