A young Purdue team came up just short of pulling off a huge victory on Monday night in Las Vegas. The Boilermakers dropped their season opener to No. 15 Gonzaga, 78-72, starting the year 0-1.
Purdue did several things well during Monday night's game, but there is also plenty of room for growth. What did Matt Painter have to say following his team's first regular-season contest?
Here are a few of the key talking points from Painter following the game.
Purdue Boilermakers head coach Matt Painter addresses the media. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The biggest difference in Monday's game was the free-throw line. Gonzaga attempted 34 free throws for the night, converting on 26. Purdue's defensive issues came in the second half, sending the Bulldogs to the charity stripe 30 times in the final 20 minutes.
"We just put them at the free-throw line too much," Painter said in a video from GoldandBlack.com . "You've gotta understand how a game is being called. You've got to be able to adjust to it. I don't think we did a very good job of adjusting to it."
One of the areas where Purdue can grow the most is playing with more physicality without fouling. Sometimes that can be a challenge, especially against a team with the size and quickness of Gonzaga. What the Boilers can't do, though, is foul players on jump shots.
"Our guys have to do a better job of embracing the physicality of the game, but learn how to do that and not foul people," he said. "Especially on jump shots. You can't foul on jump shots."
When Purdue played UConn last week, it struggled tremendously offensively. Guys forced too many shots, and the offense looked flustered. That wasn't the problem in Las Vegas, especially in the first half.
P.J. Thompson's offense was humming along throughout the night. Purdue didn't always knock down its shots, but the Boilers frequently got open looks. It was a major improvement from the exhibition game in Hartford.
"Our execution was really good. We got three or four good looks at the end of the game, we get open three-pointers and we shoot airballs. I don't know if it's fatigue or concentration or both," Painter said. "When you take good shots and you don't make them, that's what you live with. So, give our guys credit for executing, but we've gotta knock those down."
The brightest spot of the game was the play of 7-foot-4 center Daniel Jacobsen, who was dominant in the post. He ended with 22 points on just 11 shots. He made 4-of-5 free-throw attempts, collected seven rebounds and was a force on the defensive end.
"It was what Gonzaga was going to give us. They were going to play one-on-one in the post," Painter said. "So, we wanted to get as many opportunities as we could in the post to establish him, get them in foul trouble, get to the free-throw line, get layups, dunks, five-foot jump-hooks, whatever it might be."
Purdue struggled to get Jacobsen the ball in the post during the preseason. With Jacobsen getting those one-on-one matchups down low, the guards got him the ball in scoring situations, and he took advantage.
It's been established that Purdue will shoot its fair share of threes this season. On Monday, the Boilermakers only attempted 21, but the problem was their hit rate. They knocked down only five triples, and only made one in the second half.
Purdue still found ways to score points and compete down the stretch, but the missed threes, especially the three airballs at the end, were tough to swallow.
"We're a pretty heavy three-point shooting team, so when you go 5-for-21, you're putting yourself in a tough spot," Painter said. "We've gotta make more shots. To me, it's concentration. You can talk about fatigue all you want, but it's just a basketball game. You get a timeout every four minutes, you get a 15-minute halftime, we practice for three hours a day. We've been doing it since June."
The problem with those airballs - one each from Gicarri Harris, C.J. Cox and Omer Mayer - is that Purdue didn't have a chance to rebound two of them. Caden Pierce did grab one and score on a dunk immediately after.
Painter always encourages players to shoot the ball when they get quality looks, but if those shots don't go in, they at least need to hit the rim to give Purdue a shot at second-chance points.
"If you don't give us a chance to rebound, it puts us in a real bind. If you're a 35- to 40-percent three-point shooter and we can get 20% of your misses, you're looking at a 55- to 60-percent play. But if you're shooting airballs and they go out of bounds, [it's tough]."
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/purdue as Quotes That Matter From Matt Painter Following Purdue's Loss to No. 15 Gonzaga .
