Elliot Cadeau and Yaxel LendeborgAfter the gameMichigan 91, Purdue 80Game page →
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Q3 Staying composed in a hostile arena
This is the second pretty hostile environment you guys have played in, maybe the most this year. Can you speak to— they were up early, it was a snake pit, and you guys just sort of sucked the life out of the building with that run. How were you able to stay together, a couple of those big offensive rebounds early, felt like you switched the tide.
Yaxel Lendeborg
Yeah, well, we already have experience, like you said, with this. We went over to Michigan State. The environment over there was ridiculous. This one was even crazier, you know, but we preach every day in practice, you know, just staying together. This is the most unselfish team in America, in my opinion. So it's just staying together, staying composed, and not letting anything get us too high or too low.
Elliot Cadeau
Elliot Cadeau? Yeah, I just feel like we have a lot of players that have been in situations like this, and our freshmen, they act like veterans. So just having a whole bunch of level-headed people, and we've been through this before at Michigan State, so it was kind of just a little bit easier for us. Way in the back, Yaxel Lendeborg.
Q4 Length slowing Braden Smith
Yaxel Lendeborg, it seemed like length on defense— it seemed like length on defense generally slowed down Braden Smith tonight. Can you talk about that aspect of the game and slowing him down?
Yaxel Lendeborg
Yeah, that was our whole game plan. Just trying to take away some of his reads to 3-point shooters. Our whole game plan was limit their 3s and we'll come out here with a win. So I just tried my best to make him move around a little bit more, force him into the paint, you know, try to make Maryland bother him on those kickout passes, 3s. And we did the best we could with Xing out if we needed to.
Q5 Defensive versatility and his return
Yaxel Lendeborg, when you decided to come back to school and come to Michigan State, Is this the kind of thing you're imagining being, you know, this Swiss Army knife on the best defense in the country, doing everything from picking up a point guard full court to playing some of the best bigs in the country as well?
Yaxel Lendeborg
Yeah, I would say this experience is way better than I thought it would be. I came back to, you know, just be a better professional, learn how to be one. And Coach Knight from day one has been trying to mold me to be one. I still got a lot, a lot of work to do just to fix my approach and just my mentality in everyday aspects.
But the, the gaming situations is amazing, man. This is the experience I'm getting right now is great. Being able to guard guards is something I really wanted to showcase, and I think I'm doing a good job at it now. I'm just going to continue to try to build my confidence on my 3-point shot as well, to, you know, let the scouts know that I'm working on it.
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