Matt Painter Quotations

I thought Marcus White played within himself on both ends of the court. I think that it's very important for him just to let the game come to him, not force things.

We made some poor decisions. You've got to give yourself a chance. You've got to continue to play, you can't let somebody steal your spirit and you got to keep competing.

You'd like to be right there to make him put the ball on the floor or hesitate and we weren't.

We are a better team than we were two and one-half hours ago - there's no doubt about that. That is what we have to have going into the Northwestern game.

I don't talk about winning and losing, even if we're the mammoth favorite. I talk about what we have to do to get us in position to win and what we have to do to win. You have to get guys mentally ready and take on personal challenges as a team. We're going to fight them. That's what you have to do as a coaching staff, get them out there to fight them.

When he makes good decisions, he is going to give us production. I think tonight he did a good job of that. He's got to be a guy who blocks shots, rebounds and is very active.

If the season ended today I'd vote for him. He's been very consistent. He has the ability to play well even though they don't have another low-post presence.

They kept fighting. That's what I'm pleased with. But no one likes to lose. We practice and compete to put ourselves in position to win, and we didn't do that.

There is no question we would like more than one day to prepare for Memphis. But we were stuck with the start of the Big Ten and with the Christmas holidays.

As a coaching staff, we've talked about trying to blend in the new guys with our returning guys. That will be our biggest challenge during the preseason.