Michigan State - Michigan Post Game Quotes
1/30/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 30, 2002
Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo:
"Well, nothing comes easy. Give some of our guys some credit this time. It seemed like the first half was very well played from a standpoint of turnovers. Neither team turned the ball over very much.
"The game seemed like it was closer than the score indicated. I didn't think we were playing great, I didn't think they were playing great, yet I didn't think either team was playing bad. The three right before halftime was a big three, that got us going.
"We shot the ball awfully well and I thought Michigan came at us and put some pressure on us defensively. I thought they made it hard for us to run some things and we didn't handle that very well, especially in the second half. (Aloysius) Anagonye, (Kelvin) Torbert and (Chris) Hill were cramping up and I don't know what the problem was, it wasn't Maui.
"We maintained our focus pretty well. We had some letdowns but they were not seven- and eight-point letdowns, they were three- or four-point letdowns."
Michigan Head Coach Tommy Amaker:
"We came up short in a lot of ways. You're not going to beat anyone when you only shoot 29 percent for the game. I was impressed at how our kids hung in there. I thought we made a little bit of a run in the second half. Certainly one thing that deflated us was that we couldn't convert from the free-throw line. That's something that we always count on. We're one of the best free-throw shooting teams in the league, but that certainly wasn't the case for us tonight.
"I thought we would play a little better. I really did. I didn't think we would struggle as much offensively. That was part us and part of some of the things they were doing. I thought once Chris (Young) got into foul trouble it really shook us a little bit. We couldn't really throw the ball inside, and if you can't throw it in on the block against a team like Michigan State, they can really lock in on you and use their size. And that really hurt us."