Michigan State - Oakland Post Game Quotes
12/19/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 19, 2001
Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo:
"Well, every game is different. I thought we were ready to play the other night and I didn't think we played that well. I was concerned about tonight because I like Oakland's team on film. I thought our team was tired the other night and I wanted to do something about it, and tonight I thought we played pretty well. I thought they had some looks early that they normally would hit and they missed. That's not the team I saw on film. I thought our defense had something to do with it. That was one of our better defensive efforts.
"Other than turning the ball over - which is always a problem - I thought we did a lot of things better than what we've been doing. In the second half, the best thing I got out of it was our unselfishness. Marcus (Taylor) did a great job of getting Kelvin (Torbert) into the game. We had a lot of good drop off passes from (Alan) Anderson, (Aloysius) Anagonye and (Adam) Wolfe. Chris Hill had some nice shots. KT (Kelvin Torbert) also made some nice passes and I think he is starting to get into his rhythm a little bit. One other good thing is that we stayed injury free. We played very unselfish basketball, and I appreciate that."
Oakland Head Coach Greg Kampe:
On the comparison between this year's MSU team and previous teams:
"They don't compare to the championship team. I think they are a very, very good basketball team and are probably a top-25 team. I don't think they're a top four team right now, but because they might have the best coach in basketball, they may be in the top four by the time the season is over. But, they are not right now."
On MSU's 51-24 rebound advantage over Oakland:
"I was surprised. They are a great rebounding team, which has been their bread and butter forever, that is what he (Tom Izzo) coaches. Did I think we were going to come in here and rebound with them? No, I didn't. I think the numbers are a little skewed when you miss as much as we miss and there are a lot of rebounds there for them to get. They only had sixteen offensive rebounds, of course they shot 65% in the second half so they didn't have many to rebound."