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March 19, 2015
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
CINCINNATI - 66
PURDUE - 65
COACH PAINTER: First of all, I want to congratulate Cincinnati. Obviously, they were able to hang in there. When we got that lead in the last minute, and make some plays, make their free throws, and get the game into overtime. Just a hard fought game. We had all the opportunities in the world, and that's why it hurts as bad as it does because we knew we put ourself in position to win and we didn't make the necessary plays. That hurts. The guys in our locker room really battled, and they were really good on the glass. I thought we did an excellent job of attacking their zone. We simply just struggled making open shots. We had to do a better job of helping our interior players by knocking down some shots, and it just wasn't our day. But our guys did a great job executing. They did a great job rebounding the ball. We had some breakdowns, and that cost us, but give Cincinnati a lot of credit.
Q. A.J., when their center went out, did you feel like the momentum had shifted in favor of your guys and that was something you could build on?
A.J. HAMMONS: Yeah, I felt like the momentum changed a lot. We just tried to keep pounding the middle because they only had like one big left. We just tried to keep it going in the middle. The momentum, we had the whole game. We just had to finish the game off.
Q. Vince, do you think maybe kind of the succession of missed shots kind of put more pressure on you all? Maybe it was a burden in the second half as they piled up.
VINCE EDWARDS: No. We just didn't hit open shots. I don't think it put a burden on us. We just didn't get the stops when we needed them and didn't make the plays. We just had some rough plays down the stretch that cost us the game.
Q. For any of you, what have you learned about your team and how you will try to close out games next year? Since all three of you will be there potentially for that. What has been the big lesson? Because this is something that's going on throughout the season.
COACH PAINTER: No question about it. We've had these struggles during the season, just taking care of the basketball, making a free throw. The necessary things that you have to do. When you have a group of guys that have changed your culture -- we had a really good culture for about a six-, seven-year period. Then took a couple steps backwards. These guys have been huge with that. Their effort was unbelievable tonight, but our execution at times was not. We've got to do a better job of taking care of the basketball, knocking down your free throws, and then keeping them out of rhythm on the defensive end. We weren't able to do that, especially at the end. We had a lot of things that happened -- it wasn't a lack of effort kind of thing -- that got to a point where we still could have finished the game out. Their intent was to make those plays, and we just weren't able to do that. Hopefully, in the future we can be better, and you learn from it because we put ourselves in a good position tonight, and we didn't capitalize.
Q. Matt, what were your thoughts when (Octavius) Ellis was ejected from the game and how your team responded to that?
COACH PAINTER: I didn't see what happened. He threw an elbow or something like that. I didn't see it. But I thought we had an opportunity, without their leading scorer to be in the game. Any time you lose your leading scorer, I thought that kid that came in and backed him up, I thought he played great. He had some key plays, especially late in the game and overtime. He got a golden opportunity to play well, and he helped his team win. But we had that stretch right there where we had a couple of wide-open shots. We got the ball inside, and we got nothing for it. I said earlier, it's very bizarre because all we kept doing is executing on the offensive end and getting good shots and missing. We don't normally take that many 3s, but we just kept getting wide open and moving the basketball and just getting standstill shots. So we just continued to be positive and say, hey, we've got to drive the ball. We've got to get the ball inside. But that's what we ended up getting a lot. They weren't quick threes, outside of maybe a couple of them. In hindsight, you say, you shot the ball on the perimeter too much, but I thought our guys did a really good job.
Q. How would you sum up the season after the rough start from where you came?
COACH PAINTER: We have great guys. We faced some adversity, and we had a couple of really good nonconference wins, and then we had a couple bad ones. Our guys didn't hang their head. They kept fighting. We really improved on the defensive end. So I thought we had a good year. Obviously, you like to win in the NCAA Tournament after getting here, and you put yourself in a position to do so, and it hurts. But I thought we had a good year. It's more than just that. It's building on it, and we got a lot of the right guys in our locker room.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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