Feb. 8, 2012

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POSTGAME QUOTES

Ohio State 87 (21-3, 9-2), Purdue 84 (15-9, 5-6)
Value City Arena - Columbus, Ohio
Attendance: 16,504

Thad Matta, Ohio State head coach
On William Buford
“I said this last night on my radio show - I haven’t been worried about Will [Buford]. I think Will has been playing pretty good basketball. Maybe the shots haven’t been falling for him, but nobody can make them all. You know we want him to shoot and make them, but you look at him and everything he’s done here. I have great confidence in him and will never lose it.”

On the players coming off the bench
“Every guy that got in there tonight did a tremendous job of contributing. The boost those guys did on the defensive end was great. I thought they came down and executed offensively to a high level that was great. As I said all along, those guys are getting better and better and better and I’m impressed all around.”

On if the team needed a tight game like this to continue to succeed
“Every team is different. Last year at this time everyone was asking me, ‘does this team need to lose to get ready for the NCAA tournament?’ I don’t know. You can take a lot out of this game and obviously we will, but we’ve got a quick turnaround going into Saturday’s game.”

On D.J. Byrd
“I think for whatever reason, we’re like the get well card for people. He was feeling it tonight. The one he hit running towards our bench and made it falling down - what are you going to do? He was in the zone and that’s what he does. We have seen he can drive the ball as well, so it’s kind of a double-whammy.”

On the final five minutes
“I like the fact that we made the plays we had to make down the stretch to win the game. They were running the same actions the first 35 minutes of the game. Some way we found ways to challenge shots, found ways to come up with rebounds. We were a little disheveled with our lineup, but guys were doing what they needed to do. I like that we made our free throws down the stretch - that was big.”

Jared Sullinger, sophomore forward
On Shannon Scott
“He’s just learning from [Aaron] Craft. If you’re going against Craft every day, it’s only right you’re going to get better every day. He’s the best defender in college basketball.”

On the team’s high energy
“This team is becoming a family honestly. This team is coming together. The guys on the bench understand that they are a part of this team. They help this offensive go and they help this defense go with constant competition in practice. Their hard work in practice is starting to show on the floor through us. It’s very special.”

On coming out of the game after going down
“I just came down, I felt a little funny. I didn’t want to risk injuring myself anymore. We’ll see what happens, but I’ll be good for Saturday.”

Aaron Craft, sophomore guard
On William Buford’s shooting
“He had a great couple days of preparation and shot the ball really well in practice. Any time you have a scorer like Will [Buford], he’s due for a game like this. That’s what he’s capable of doing and that’s what we want from him.”

On the challenge of winning tonight
“Every game in the Big Ten is a dog fight. I think it’s great to see we were able to find a way to win even though they shot the ball the way they did. We knew they were a great team and especially after losing at home they’d come in ready to go.”

On Shannon Scott, Evan Ravenel and Sam Thompson
“I think those guys were sitting on the bench and they saw their time to come in and they were ready. It was awesome to see them take advantage. We have great trust in those guys and I think you could see that tonight putting those guys in and knowing they will get the job done just as much as anyone else.”

William Buford, senior guard
On shooting well tonight
“My teammates were able to give me the ball and set great screens for me. Fortunately I was able to knock them down so I owe it to my teammates.”

On what made the difference tonight
“Rebounding the ball and making them shoot the tested 3s. They still shot well from the 3-point line, but we just wanted them to take some tested shots.”

Matt Painter, Purdue head coach
On the game tonight
“We had a better fight to us. Obviously, you are going to look better when you make shots; we made a lot of shots today. D.J. Byrd was five-for-five in the first half from three and he hit five in the first half at Minnesota. When you are going to compete against a team like this someone is going to have to be special and you are going to have to take care of the ball. I thought Byrd was special tonight and I thought we took care of the ball. I thought we played well enough to win; we just didn’t catch a couple of those breaks at the end. We didn’t get those loose balls and some things didn’t go our way. We played harder but it wasn’t good enough, we lost. ”

On the offense opening up tonight
“We made some shots; we don’t shoot like that every game. We were able to open it up and play smaller with more skilled guys. I thought [Kelsey] Barlow did a good job of getting away from [Aaron] Craft. He [Craft] can be so dominating as a defensive point guard. He can funnel you where he wants and Barlow and [Lewis] Jackson got out on the run a little bit and got them playing from behind. When you are playing against the bigs and not one-on-one with Aaron Craft, your percentages of making plays are going to be higher.”

On playing Ohio State at home
“No question it is tough to play here. I don’t think that they have had a close game up until now. I think their closest game was Michigan. Especially with the students right on top of you, you have to stop those runs. We were going to have to outscore them and we didn’t do it. We obviously weren’t getting stops and rebounds. They are a good team; they could go ten-deep if they wanted to. They have a very talented group.”