Post-Game Quotes: Iowa

Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo

Opening statement…
Well, I was really proud of my team tonight. Played a Top-25 team. I thought physically, they beat the hell out of us the first six or seven minutes. I thought our assistants did a great job of saying what they were going to do, slapping balls loose. And they play hard, boy, and they warm up hard. I was very impressed with that, and I mean, let's be honest about it. [Bennett] Stirtz had probably his worst game in a while. You know, Jeremy [Fears], he deserves some credit. We don't deserve all the credit because he missed some free throws. He's probably not missed that many free throws in a game. So, we feel fortunate to win the game, but we won it the way that we had to win it, and we bounced back, got a little tougher. We outrebounded them by almost 20. I thought we defended really, really well. The ball screen defense, they're really good at it. And I thought we did a great job. We said free throws were really important. We got to the line, and we converted, so they rebound, they run pretty good. That takes care of a lot of things. And yet, we still turned it over a little bit too much and didn't really shoot it that well from the three. We still got some issues at the two that we're trying to work through. But we're getting more play. The reason Cam Ward didn't play; he sprained his wrist in the last game. We just didn't think we should put him out there tonight. But that was a worry, too, and give Jesse McCulloch credit, because [Carson] Coop struggled a little bit tonight, too, and he's been really good for us. Still did some good things, But, you know, five turnovers and had the ball knocked loose, missed a couple layups. You know, maybe not his best game, but he's been really good for us. So, what a day, you know, you win a big game, you win your home opener in the conference, and you have, you know, our football coach is on board and got to be here with our fans, and, so hopefully things, keep getting better. It's a big week. Questions.

On getting used to Big Ten play…
Yeah, but being at Drake and having five or six of those guys that came over with them, you know, Drake is in the Big Ten blueprint, and so, those guys know what it is. I mean, that team won five overtime games last year. Five. And so that tells you that they're well coached, and that you got a guard to go. And that guard, I think we wore him down a little bit. That's one of the things if you can run and do some things. But he missed some shots I think he normally makes. So, I would just, I've been really proud of Jeremy, because not a great shooting night he didn't take enough shots. I thought he could have taken a few more. I'm getting really comfortable with his shooting, but he's getting to the line. He's making those. You know, one bad turnover and a couple others that were good, but all in all, boy, when he was at that pregame, that those huddles, when we had been getting our butts kicked, I thought Jeremy Fears was really, really good, and that's what good leaders do, so I feel fortunate about that. [Jaxon] Kohler played really well, and I thought [Coen] Carr played really well.

On what has impressed him most and frustrated him the most…
Oh, what's impressed me the most is the connectivity, the camaraderie. I mean, it's not phony. It's special, you know? It's really, you know, Carson can play not his greatest game tonight, and I still love him, because what he's done for our younger guys has been unbelievable. How he handles the lock room and things. What he's done for Jesse and Cam has been phenomenal. I think Jeremy is really coming into his own. That's impressed me. He's just become a better all-around player, all around, doesn't mean he's shooting better, defending better, passing better. But it means he's leading better. And that one is, you know, good teams need a great leader. And I just, boy, I was more impressed with how he led and how he was, and I'm a big-time out guy. You know, big time out ever since Draymond [Green] was with me. I never got to say anything in timeouts, and now that he's not here, I get to talk in those timeouts, and now Jeremy's talking. And I realized, man, if I let Draymond and Jeremy and everybody else talk, it's an easier job. So, I'm really proud of him for that, and really pleased. I am disappointed yet, you know, with our shooting in general. I mean, we shot 50%, but I don't think we're shooting the ball well enough. I don't think we're... We need more consistency at the two. And that's not all their fault. They're all new guys; they're all guys that haven't played any minutes here. And so, I got to do a better job, and they got to do a better job. And some of that falls on me too. And so, I'm going to try to do that now. You know, we get through this week, then we get finals, which means you get a little time. I mean, it's been a, it's been an incredible month of basketball for us, as far as not any travel, teams we've played, and, how it's gone. We need a little practice to get better, and I got to do a better job with those guys. That's all me.

On factoring in Jordan Scott to the lineup…
Yeah, Cam, you know, hit a 3 tonight. I mean, Jordan [Scott] hit a 3 tonight, and, you know, our players are so excited for him, because he's really a good shooter. And he just, he plays so hard and he knocks balls loose. You know, he's skinny beyond his means. He's skinny, scrawny, but he's tough. He reminds me of Steve Smith that way. That maybe his bulk isn't there, but his heart is there. And we just love the way he plays. So, you know, he played 19 minutes, his minutes are going to continue to go up, but I'm not doubting on anybody. I just need somebody to rise up. So, we're giving guys chances. Yeah, we're just going to keep doing that before we get it straightened out.

On the consistent style of MSU basketball…
Well, I'll be honest with you, it's really important, it's our culture. And, yes, we still can have a culture in this day and age. We got one and I don't plan on that changing. But at the same time, we got punched in the mouth early, that doesn't happen much this year yet, and so maybe that was good for us, you know? To get... I mean, they get their hands in everything. And so, we were better that way, and they play a style that's slower, and so that makes it hard to run. They got a lot of guys back. That was why we did do a pretty good job reburning the ball because they were sending guys back. I thought Jaxon getting some of those offensive rebounds, Coen, I thought got some timely plays, helps us, but, hey, defend, rebound and run, and as Pat [Fitzgerald] learned sitting there, that was a football game on hardwood, and it's kind of been okay for us. I'm okay with it.

On seeing the good characteristics in this team…
A good point. Depth is really coming along. Our rebounding is really coming along. Point guard play has to be critical if you're going to be one of those teams. And that is really, really coming along. And I think we need a little more consistency with the shooting on that perimeter. And, and even defense. You know? But I said this two weeks ago, and I'll say it again. I don't think we know how good any teams are right now. Meaning, we beat Kentucky, and everybody thinks, "Well, that Kentucky team's going to be a lot better a couple weeks from now, you know?" Everybody's got so many new players, and we don't. And the ones we have, we're struggling with a little bit. But a lot of them, not everybody, a lot of them have new players, and it's going to take some time, Arkansas, they're going to get better. Carolina's going to get better, you know? But I think we're going to get better, too. But that is an issue right now that I don't want to get too high or too low on, because I think this is a product. I said to you guys early, middle of December, give me a buzz, I'll tell you what I think. I still feel that way. I still feel we're a couple weeks away from figuring out who is really good, who's good, and who's not as good.

On the value of having good defense when the offense is struggling…
Yeah, I'm surprised at our defense, but that's where you're going to give Carson Cooper some credit because he does a lot of things with ball screens that gets unnoticed. But Jeremy (Fears Jr.) was just at a different level tonight getting over him and doing things. I thought he was walked in and should be becoming one of the best defenders in this league. And when he's doing that, it just energizes our whole team. So, defense travels, defense is consistent. There's not many good teams that are pretty good defensively. And once in a while you can just outscore everybody, but not that often. Especially on the road in this league.

On the difference Jaxon Kohler makes down low in the paint…
Jaxon (Kohler), for a guy who's not the greatest athlete in the world, he gets a lot done. He's got a nose for the ball, he's hungry, he's obsessed with getting rebounds, and he's done a very good job of staying true. I think we're starting to learn to get it in, get it out, we've got to have a little bit of both, those inside/out passes would make our threes better. So, I'm still working on him getting a couple more assists because I think we're going to him a little bit, but if you're averaging a double-double in the Big Ten, I don't care who you are, that's a hell of a feat and he's doing it against some good people, so I'm proud of him too. But if I stay proud of everybody like I am then I've got to get back to being miserable a little bit, so I'll figure out some things by tomorrow when I talk to you.

On what stands out about Coen Carr's game as of late…
He's been shooting a lot better in practice. He puts the ball on the floor a lot better. He's taken to the hole a lot better. Getting to the free throw line is and rebounding is something we think he should be at an elite level at, and he's getting better at it. I mean, we are not a finished product, although a lot of teams aren't. But I think we still have a lot of room for growth, which is exciting. We just got to make sure we stay the course. And I realized, like I've been telling you, that we don't know where everybody is yet. In a couple weeks, we'll figure it out and then we'll see what the pecking order is and where we fit into that pecking order.

On Kur Teng…
I think it's my wife's birthday. I should be happy today. You know what? I'm not satisfied with the defense of our three guards. Those two guards, they've got to get better. And if I was a reporter, if I was a fan, if I was anybody, that's my job. I've got to get better. And I'm telling you it's going to get cranked up a little bit because now we're to the point if it gets better, we may just be a real, real good team. But you've got to have some shooting there and most teams, best players are there two and three men. So, you've got to be able to guard it too. And I'm not publicly lashing out, I'm just saying they've got to get better, and I think they made progress. Divine (Ugochukwu) did some things better. Trey (Fort) was under the weather a little bit and Kur (Teng), he looks better offensively, but he's still got some work to do and we're going to help him through it. We've got to do a better job coaches first, players second.

On his first impression of new Head Football Coach Pat Fitzgerald…
I appreciate my president, I appreciate my athletic director, and I appreciate my new football coach. Because I talked to each one of them about this and I heard some comments because I couldn't make it to the press conference. My damn day job got in the way, even though I'm a football fanatic. I had to do what I had to do. But the way everybody talked about Jonathan Smith was really, really, really special to me. Because in this day and age, things happen. And what Jonathan Smith said to me yesterday was pretty cool too. And, this is a tough profession. Got tougher in the last three, four years. I mean, people out there think just because you're paying players and you're doing this, and everybody's everybody else is doing it too. And it's been tough. And I said it in Jonathan's behalf that I think, we did what we had to do, but it was hard. It's hard to see a coach go down, especially one that has character and class. And I was really impressed at my AD, my president, and my new football coach all talked about him. So, that's number one. Number two, I think what you saw on the court during the time out, I told him, "Quit screwing up my huddles." He had the place rocking and rolling. I couldn't hear in that damn huddle. So, I told his wife to shut him up a little bit. But that's pretty cool, too. He's just on a mission. And sometimes, whether it's all of us or some of us, when you go through hell a little bit, it makes all the glory better. And I think we're going to do everything we can do. I hope it's everybody. It's not just our administration. It's our fan base. Everybody's got it. And I understand why sometimes they get a little edgy. And yet, we're Spartans, and the Spartans better stick together. Because that place out there is winning us some games right now. That place over there at hockey is winning them some games right now. That place over there in football has not been doing that for us. And so, I'm putting a challenge out to our people too. And that has to happen. If there's not a home field, home court, home ice, it's harder to be successful. We were not very good tonight, and our crowd was right there with us, and I said that in one of the huddles, I said, 'Listen to them. I get them people out there to go fight them. Why don't you do it?' So, it's a cool day for a guy who I think has a lot of Michigan State qualities. I've known him for a while. I didn't know him great, but when he went through some tough times, I talked to him, and I think we made a hell of a selection, and I think he's going to do a hell of a job. I'm asking our 600,000 living alums, come on over. Come on over. Let's turn Spartan Stadium into Munn Ice Arena and Breslin Center and see if we can get this thing rocking and rolling. It'll be fun.

Iowa Head Coach Ben McCollum

Opening Statement...
You know, this was great for us. I think that sometimes as you're building, you need to make sure that, and that's why it was good that we played them the first game. Understanding the league, understanding how it's going to be played, understanding all those different things, and then just a good environment for us to be in, which was great for us to learn and to grow and to get better. And we will get shockingly better. You know, I think a little bit of it was that Ole Miss game kind of hurt our flow a little bit because they were switching so much and then just couldn't recover offensively into this game where you have to get to the next action. We just weren't getting to the next action consistently enough. And then, you know, you can only withstand so much of the offensive rebounding pressure, the post pressure when you're not scoring. And then it just kind of overwhelms you. And obviously the free throws, you know, 25 free throws or whatnot, that'll get you to. I thought we did a great job in transition defensively, which was a big key for us. And then, you know, I thought O-boards were okay for a little bit. I thought we broke a little bit down the stretch. And then, obviously, the free throw differential is one of those things we're going to have to fix.

On what he attributes the rebounding struggles to...
I haven't watched it. I'd have to watch it to be certain. Part of it is we got in foul trouble. I mean, our guys, our best rebounders got in foul trouble. We had three of our bigs with two fouls initially. And so that'll hurt you.

On Michigan State's physicality...
I'd have to watch it. I don't know exactly what went wrong with that. I don't know if we had body-on-body. I kind of felt like we did sometimes. It felt like the guards then came in and maybe our guards were either leaking or weren't around or weren't getting the 50-50 balls. You know, some of those things. And then obviously the foul trouble killed us because then I think in the first half, we got a box-out foul that was somebody's second, I think. Maybe either Tavion (Banks) or Cam (Manyawy). And then it was like, well, we can't get a third foul. And so then you start to get worried on the physicality. And then it's like, okay, well, I don't know if they're going to call that all game. So we just got to do a better job. That's why we wanted to play here first. It's good.

On Jeremy Fears' defense on Bennett Stirtz?
I think it was good. I think our offense was probably a bigger factor. It was awful. To be honest, we didn't get to the next action. We sat there at a high ball screen. And that worked against Ole Miss. And that doesn't work against a good defense that's kind of loaded up.They do a great job of loading up, do a great job of preparation. Their bigs do a good job in coverage. And then they kind of shrink behind you. And so you can't just sit there in the same. You've got to get to the next action. In spurts, the second half, we started to get to the next action. But it wasn't consistent enough. You can't just come down and run one play, like one ball screen. You've got to get to the next, to the next, to the next. And we just didn't do a good job tonight of that.

On physicality translating down to the rest of the season...
Yeah, it's going to help us a lot. That's the thing. We're an infant program still. This is our first year. These guys are playing great. We're not going to sit here and pout about this.This is good to play this kind of game. It's like one of those things where we've got our butts beat. I've had my butt beat before. This isn't the first time. And this is sometimes a good thing. Because then you can learn and you can grow. As long as you use it the right way and don't say, oh, we can't beat them. You've got to learn. We need to be better the next time. Hopefully we get another opportunity to play them at some point. And hopefully it'll be better.

On running a faster offense to get back into a game...
I think a couple things. I think we didn't want to play at the pace we played at tonight. We wanted to play faster. We didn't. And I'm not sure why. I probably didn't have them prepared enough. Second half, we wanted to play a little bit faster. I will say this. I think it was a 59 or 60 possession game against UNC. I almost think Michigan State might start scoring transition, but I kind of suspect that they're forcing that half court where their offensive rebounds matter more. Maybe I'm wrong. But I felt like they got pretty deep into the shot clock down to the end pretty consistently that kind of slowed the game down on top of how we play. But we just needed to get to the next action. We just kind of stalled out way too much. But we'll fix it. We'll be better.

On dealing with the atmosphere in the Breslin Center...
I mean, we started good. I didn't think we concentrated enough. I don't think the atmosphere got us. I think it was just we just didn't play very well. Our offense was inept. We didn't play very well today. That happens. And they had a lot to do with that. It's not like we were just us. We've got to get better. I'm certainly thankful that we got exposed because that's how you get better.

On what led Brendan Hausen to not playing in the second half...
Good question. I thought we needed to get paint more probably. Meaning I think we needed more driving and we didn't have enough driving. So we're trying to get to the paint a little more consistently. But we couldn't get them in rotation like we wanted to. Again, we just have to do a better job next game and hopefully we will.

On improving the offense...
"Yeah. Again, I probably have to watch it. We were great offensively. And then we played Ole Miss and they switch. And so then they switch and you really can't run a lot because you stall out. So then it's like, okay, now it's matchup driven because it's against a switch. Well then it's matchup driven and one of our players has a big game. So then we're kind of like, okay, let's just do that every game. It's not going to work. So then you try to recalibrate it in practice, but it's tricky because he's playing well. And again, I'd have to watch, but my guess is guys were kind of just watching the show a little bit too much. That works against some teams. It doesn't work here.

On turning the loss into a learning opportunity...
You can't overreact. I think that when we took this program over, we knew it was going to be a tough takeover. It's going to be tough. And I think last year even we lost two in a row at home, I think. Last season now we didn't get beat by this amount, but we also didn't go to Michigan State. So we learned from that. And a lot of times when you go and you watch, there's certain things that are self-inflicted. And if you can fix the self-inflicted, there's certain things that they did that you're just not going to beat. And then there's things that are self-inflicted that you have to correct. And so as long as we don't overreact to that, I think we can really make some big-time strides. I can be a better coach and our players can be better in regards to that. And we've got a great opportunity coming Saturday, so that's good for us.

Michigan State Junior Forward Coen Carr

On getting the first Big Ten win of the season…
Yeah, it's great. You know, you always want to get that first one, no matter when it is. The meat of the Big Ten starts in January, but every Big Ten win is the same. A Big Ten win now means the same as a Big Ten win in February, so to get this first one is great.

On a Big Ten game being more physical than the others…
Today, there were a lot of fouls in the first half.  It's hard to kind of get into the flow of the game, but once we found out how the refs were calling it, we were able to adjust it, things like that, and just play without fouling. The first half was really slow because we just committed a lot of fouls.

On getting ready to play Duke on Saturday...
We're 1-0 in the Big Ten, but it's next game mentality, so we've got to get ready for Duke. It's a great team. I feel like we're going to have a good game plan. We're going to be good.

Michigan State Redshirt Sophomore Guard Jeremy Fears

On making the matchup with Iowa point guard Bennett Stirtz tough...
He was preseason, I don't know, All-American, All-Big Ten. Obviously, he's a great player, a great point guard. That's something I dream to get at the end of the year. That was a great challenge and a great matchup.

On mentality as last year's Big Ten champions going into conference play...
Definitely, just the fact that our goal is to be back-to-back champions. There's no better way to start it than the first game with a win. It's a lot easier to start 1-0 than 0-1 for the Big Ten. We just made sure we came in and tried to get the job done.

Michigan State Senior Forward Jaxon Kohler

On thoughts going into conference play...
It's crucial for us to put our foot down and try to establish what we want to do. So coming off of last year, we have to make sure, hey, like, we're not focused on January or February. We're focused on game one, and we're trying ourselves on what we can do. I felt like today was a good first step, but as you know, we celebrate for tonight, and then we move forward. We just got to keep working on the small things. You know, turnovers were a big thing that we struggled with a little bit in this game. It's an easy fix, watch some film, learn, and then move on, especially for this next game coming up.

Thoughts on consistency in performances regarding double-doubles...
That's one of the biggest things this year I'm trying to be. That's one of my goals, to be consistent. It's great to have two back-to-back, but every game I'm trying to get a double-double. I know realistically that's not going to happen, but I can try my best to. Honestly, you know, I take that back. I don't think it's unrealistic that I can get a double-double every game. I think that's realistic, and I think that's a goal of mine that I set for myself at the beginning of the year. The biggest thing is just being consistent for the team on rebounds. We had to dominate the glass. i think that's a big strength of our team because it gets our running game going. Then, being a go-to guy on offense is important, you know, spreading the floor out a little bit.

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Players Mentioned

Coen Carr

Carson Cooper

Jaxon Kohler

Jesse McCulloch

Jordan Scott

Kur Teng

Cam Ward

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