Purdue star questions officiating after loss at Michigan: ‘A lot of questionable things’ — but Matt Painter offers no excuses

Michigan’s home court advantage finally shined through in a huge way during a 75-73 victory over Purdue, the crowd deafening during several key runs. As always, there were questionable calls on both sides during the physical affair, the Boilermakers arguably getting the better of it in the first half and U-M down the stretch, though Purdue guard Braden Smith didn’t see it that way.

While head coach Matt Painter was diplomatic in his postgame press conference, Smith was hesitant to give Michigan much credit for the win that vaulted the Wolverines into first place in the conference.

“We can point our fingers at everything and say its oh, this or that, but at the end of the day, we messed up a lot,” Smith said. “Starting from me, starting from everybody else, we all kind of just [lost] from being lazy here and there — not sticking to our rules; not doing what got us in these places to win those games. When we got away from that, they took advantage of it and got and-ones, got kick out threes, got points off it, which screwed us kind of in the end. 

“It’s kind of crazy that someone can shoot 19 times and for me to shoot 21 times and zero free throw attempts. I find that kind of amazing, to me. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to go out there and play, and play through it all and do what we have to do.”

Smith was referring to Purdue big man Trey Kaufman-Renn, who fouled out after going 11-of-19 from the floor. 

“I think we did a really good job. I thought a lot of the shots we got were good shots,” he continued. “Like I said, we’re hustling on the rebound [from Caleb Furst late in the game] and can’t get a call. At the end of the day, it’s what it is, and you’ve got to move on. 

“It’s tough going in here. You guys all saw that tonight. A lot of questionable things. But you do have to be 10 points better. You have to be able to get a lead and hold it. I thought we did a good job in the first half … we let it go in the second half, let it slip.”

The late play in question was a big rebound from Michigan center Vlad Goldin on which he appeared to get raked across the face before falling. One official called it a travel, but the other saw the contact and ruled it a foul. 

“You always magnify plays that happen at the end of the game, right?” Painter said. “You give them more juice just because that’s what happened at the end. You make those plays and you give yourself a better chance.

“It’s away from me, you know what I mean? I’m watching people shoot the basketball, I’m not watching people box out when it’s away from me. I see a lot more when it’s right in front of me.”

What it came down to, Painter said, was they couldn’t grab a couple rebounds against the Michigan bigs when they needed them. 

“Obviously, we outrebound them by four — we get 14 offensive rebounds, they get 12. But, they got a couple of key ones,” he said. “The one they got where they got [Nimari] Burnett a three, I think we foul them on another one, they get a put-back on another one, the and-one. We just had to make those plays. No different than the offense.

“I thought offensively we were getting the ball where we wanted to get the ball. Trey was getting that ball in the sweet spot, he was making some nice reads, some dump-downs where he got challenged at the rim, and we had to convert some of them or we had to go to the free throw line. We just didn’t …  it was a very physical game. We tried to manage it to the best of our ability with offense, defense, subs.”

To his credit, Furst made no excuses. He could have fouled out earlier, in fact, when he bumped Michigan forward Danny Wolf on a tough drive and finish just a few plays earlier, and he seemed to poke Goldin in the eye reaching for the ball after being stuffed at the rim.

“That’s something you’ve got to live with,” Furst said. “That’s life on the road. We knew that coming in, especially in a game like this going against a team of this caliber. Coach Painter talks about it a lot, but you’ve got to be 10 points better. We weren’t that tonight.”