Michigan State University
Northwestern
News From The Locker Room
1/10/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 10, 2001
Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo:
"It was a good way to bounce back, even though we looked a little sluggish early. I thought Northwestern did a pretty good job in the first 10 minutes, I was very impressed with their three-point shooting tonight. We took away their back door stuff, I thought we did a great job, but in the mean time we gave up some open threes and those are things we cannot do, we gave up some of them with our substituting. I was pleased with the overall effort and I was pleased with the change in the lineup. I thought Zach (Randolph) played extremely well, he played hard and rebounded very well and scored when he got in there. I think we lost a little focus the second half. Marcus (Taylor) has a little way to go because he is still coming back from the injury. At the same time, I thought Al (Anagonye) and David (Thomas) handled it extremely well and that is not easy to do. Not only do I take my hat off to them for that but I think they bounced back and played pretty well."
"All in all I think we played pretty well but not with the energy we need to do the things we want to do, but I think we made a step in the right direction."
Northwestern Head Coach Bill Carmody
"Well, I sure liked the way our guys played in the first 10 minutes of the game. We hung in there a little bit, but it was the relentless pressure on the back boards - I mean looking at the stats in rebounding, it seemed like it was more than 30 rebounds that they out rebounded us by. I don't know if we can do anything to remedy that, but that's a heck of a good team and as I said before the game, what I like about them on tape is that they pass the ball around so nicely. It doesn't seem like there are too many selfish guys out there and that's the mark of a good team. I was thinking back to last year - they (MSU) lost two terrific players and they are still very good. They have a ways to go to reach that (last year), but that's a real powerful team."
"I wasn't that unhappy that we lost by 30, because we are trying to take small steps right now. I don't know if we did that tonight, but we are just trying to get our guys to run their stuff and hang in there. If you hang in for 10 minutes, can you hang in for 15, and you go from there."
