Michigan State-Michigan Post-Game Quotes
1/27/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 27, 2008
EAST LANSING, Mich. -
Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo
Opening comments...
If I were to give out stars, it would be to my assistant coaches, my managers, and my video guys. I thought honestly that we did as good a job as you could do in a couple-day period, going from an offense that is unconventional and that we had never seen. I thought we did a pretty dog-gone good job of defending what I think is a pretty good offensive team. I've said all along that this is not a 1-6 team. We did a great job on Manny Harris, who I think is an incredible player, and we did a great job on (DeShawn) Sims. They're both great, great players. I thought we did a good job on them, and yet we had a strange game ourselves with (Raymar) Morgan in foul trouble, and with (Goran) Suton just kind of maybe not where we need him to be. We had different guys step up too, but Travis Walton was sensational in his defense. I thought Kalin Lucas and of course Drew Neitzel are starting to come along. I thought in the second half, our offensive execution was really good. There were a couple negatives - we were falling asleep on a couple of those threes. I didn't think our rebounding was bad; I just thought the loose balls were bad. There were a lot of loose balls that they picked up and kicked out for some threes, so give them credit on that, but you also have to fault us. All in all, it was a program win from the preparation standpoint, and I just thought our auxiliary people did an incredible job, and our team - they were very fired up when we got back so late from Northwestern, and they kind of handled it like the NCAA Tournament when we went 20 minutes at a time with film and walk-through, and I thought they did a great job.
On the play of Kalin Lucas...
I told you when I recruited him that Kalin Lucas is the fastest guard I've ever had. There have been some pretty good guards here, but as far as a guy who gets in the lane and makes some things happen, he's the best now, and he's going to be really the best down the road. He got a little sloppy early in the game, and I think what I'm learning to love about this kid is that he can take some criticism, he can dissect what he's doing, and then make some changes right there during the game. Not a lot of guys are capable of doing that. He can get into the paint, and when he does, as we play with him more and more and he learns the kick-out and do different things, I think his game is going to go to another level. At the same time, 18 points is a pretty good night here.
On slowing down Michigan guard Manny Harris and forward DeShawn Sims...
We just wanted to give them the Michael Jordan treatment. To be honest with you, that's what we do with great players that have the ability to shoot the three and have the ability to put it on the floor. Some guys can just shoot, and some guys can just dribble. Those two guys can do both. Trav did a heck of a job on Harris because he's long, quick, and good. He can shoot it, and he can get to the line. That's one of the things we wanted to do, was keep him off the free-throw line, so we kind of sank in a little bit, and that's why they hit a couple of those threes. With Sims, we just tried to press up on him. He got a couple to the basket, because we didn't help enough on the weak side, but for the most part, I thought we did a pretty good job.
Michigan Head Coach John Beilein
His overall thoughts on the game...
I was impressed with Michigan State today. I think their defense is really good. The way they run their offense, with the speed and intensity and the way they run their plays, it's very hard to duplicate in practice sessions. They're very, very good and it was tough for us to guard at some points.
On coaching in his first Michigan State-Michigan game...
I've been around awhile, so there are always these rivalries, but I don't think there's one that's better than this. It was great. The students are so involved. There's intensity on both teams. I didn't notice a letdown at any time. It's a great atmosphere and this is college basketball at its best. We just have to improve, so that we can make it a game right down to the end and sneak out of here with a win one of these years.
On the play of his offense...
The defensive numbers are our biggest concern right now. People are shooting a very high percentage against us. We're not getting fast-break points, and we're not getting the things that you would get from defensive stops. It seems like we're getting the ball on the zero-yard line too often to get transition points. If you look at most of our points today, they were all in half-court offense. We need to get some easy points as well as steals and get some big turnovers that we can run with. We're just having trouble right now physically, speed-wise, communicating, defensively.
On getting down early in the game and the way his team came back...
I loved the way we came back. A lot of that had to do with how we were shooting the basketball. Then I think we went 2 for 18 in the second half from three-point range. Although some were tough late shots, we had some good open looks that we didn't hit. That's normal when you're playing against a good defensive team.
On how Michigan State compares to other teams he has seen...
I think they compare with everybody we've seen thus far, and obviously we've seen some good ones. I love the system they have and the way they play. The kids just really know their roles and Tom (Izzo) comes out of a timeout and tweaks it just enough that I would assume Neitzel has done those type of things against many other teams besides Michigan. They play off each other very well; they're a very unselfish team.
On the play of Michigan State's Drew Neitzel...
We tried to switch screens. He's one of those rare guys that's a runaway shooter and can still see the open man while he's catching the ball with a quick release. He's great with that and I was really impressed. I actually showed our team clips on him, not as a scouting report, almost as an invitation of, "This is how hard you need to cut to get open and still share the ball." As quick as his jump shot is, that's how quick he sees the open man. He is tough to guard because he plays so hard.
On the goals for his team...
We just need to keep trying to get better. I don't think we can set a specific goal. Our goal is to play better every single day. You look at who we've played, where we've played and what we've done, there's been no let-up at all. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure we don't have a letdown. We just need to keep trying to get better. I wouldn't measure our program right now on how well we do at Michigan State or how well we do at Wisconsin; I measure on how we're getting better.
