Michigan State - UNC-Asheville Post Game Quotes
12/17/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 17, 2001
Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo:
"Well, they always told me the highs are never as high as the lows are lows. I've been the brutal guy on the fans, I'd like to apologize. To have the place packed on a night like this, our athletic department did a great job to get it filled. The people did a great job, but we just didn't do a very good job. I was very disappointed in our play. I can give clich?s like coaches do and the media do and expect that after a big win, but I don't expect that. I'm not very satisfied with our performance. I'm going to take the blame. It's my job to get a team ready to play, and we weren't ready to play. I'm only going to promise you that I'm going to do something about it.
"You have to give Eddie and his team credit. They did a couple of things that really bothered us. Number one, they ran a triangle and two. That surprised us. Number two, by going with a smaller, quicker lineup, I thought we just did not have the inside athletes to cover people out on the perimeter, and that gave us some problems. I got stubborn and decided not to go zone because I thought we needed to work on this.
"We have a lot of things to work on for Wednesday. We try to tell our players as big as a win is against Arizona, a loss to a young team like North Carolina-Asheville would probably be bigger news."
North Carolina-Asheville Head Coach Eddie Biedenbach:
"This is a great game for us to come in and have an opportunity to play Michigan State. It is a wonderful opportunity for our school and our team and for me personally because I have the utmost respect for what Coach Izzo and his staff has done in the past ten seasons to capture the state of Michigan. I am an old NC State guy and we have North Carolina down there and even though I am not there (NC State) anymore, I can see how Coach Izzo has built his program to rival a powerhouse like North Carolina. I have watched this team play at the Final Four and we played them a few years ago and I am impressed with what Coach Izzo has done with this program.
"I am really proud of our team. This game could turn around our season. Whether we win or lose, we have got to start playing together and build team chemistry. We did that for most of the game except for a short period in the second half when we started to make a couple bad decisions because our guys were trying to get us back in the game with a quick three or easy basket. You can't do that against a team like Michigan State because they play such consistent defense and don't allow you to get those easy shots."