Dec. 29, 2009
Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery 
Iowa Head Coach Todd Lickliter
Overall Statement…
“I’m going to steal a line from Matt Painter. A few years ago, he had a younger team and I had veteran team and we played them. After the two hour game he said, ‘I think we have a better team than we did two hours ago.’ That’s my hope for this team. I think they were very challenging but our guys responded well, had stretches of very good basketball but you’ve got to play at such a high level to compete with a team that plays as well as Purdue does. We just couldn’t put 40 minutes together tonight, that’s a hard thing to do but that is the goal. But we are better than we were and we have got to maintain the focus and consistency that’s required to grow and be the kind of team we want to be. We are probably the youngest team in the league. This is a really new experience for a few of these guys, now they understand it and that should help them as far as their next challenge. I think Robbie Hummel and E’Twaun Moore are absolutely terrific; they all play with a lot of energy and aggressiveness. I think it is as aggressive of a team as we have played.”
On Purdue’s defense…
“I don’t think their defense backed us down. We didn’t back down from it but I do think it was wearing and I think that is what they do. I think that is a good strategy; they run people in, they defend hard, they defend the full length and I think it was very challenging. I thought our guys didn’t back down, we accepted the challenge and did what we needed to do to attack them. You should get better having played against that.”
On Purdue’s defense at point guard…
“If you look that is what they do, it is not Cully Payne, or the point guard from the last team they played, or the team before that; they pick up, they get up in the point guard, they try to get you out of our offense and you’ve got to be able to make some plays and you have to be able to maintain great spacing. It’s hard to do, it is their strategy and I thought there were stretches where we were effective against it and there were stretches where they were-and they had more of them.”
On Chris Kramer’s defense against Matt Gatens…
“He sure made it tough for Matt to get some touches, I think he may have even made it tough for him to breathe, they shared the same jersey there for a while I think. It was tough, but Matt did a great job of screening. We started to use him as a screener; the hard thing is being able to get it to Matt and giving him an opportunity to make a move or do something. By the time we got it to him he was out wide on the floor and there was so much pressure on him. Give him credit, Matt was very poised and he continued to guard. I suppose there are going to be games like that and we need to be able to use him in other ways when they guard him that closely.”
Head Coach Matt Painter
Opening Statement…
“I thought our guys did a good job of staying with the basketball, pressuring the basketball and then really taking advantage of their lack of depth at the point guard position. We put a lot of time in our practices on guarding the basketball. We wanted to keep a fresh body on Cully Payne and try to wear him down and really disrupt what they were trying to do. I thought our guys did a pretty good job of that. In the second half it was important to get off to a good start.
On Gatens’ and Payne’s nine combined turnovers…
“We were not trying to gamble if they put themselves in a bad spot. We were trying to be disciplined on the defensive end and keep pressure on them and try to contain them. Last year when we played in Iowa City we had done a poor job of containing the dribble at times. We did a poor job tonight on several possessions but for the most part I think we did a better job this year. We had a lot of blow-bys last year that really broke us down and when I showed the guys the film they didn’t quite remember the game that way and I think that helped a little bit.”
On E’Twaun Moore…
“Second half he wasn’t going to be stopped. He made some perimeter shots and you get frustrated when things don’t go his way defensively. I though he showed a lot of poise tonight, just taking his time and stepping into his shot. The way they defend and pack it in defensively, they’re a very good team defensive group, you have to hit some perimeter shots to loosen them up. If you don’t loosen them up with those perimeter shots they’ll just continue to pack it in there and not let the ball get inside.”