Michigan State Postgame Quotes
12/21/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 21, 2002
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo:
"I definitely feel better than I did Thursday but I think you can see that there is a still enough issues that we have a lot of work to do. And yet there were times that I thought we played extremely well against a very good team and a very well-coached team and I thought at times we made look like an average team, especially at the start. We really did the job defensively. I thought we didn't let Jimmy Baxter get into the flow of things. I also thought Al (Anagonye) did a great job on Will McDonald early, and that was the difference in the game. Yet, in the second half we still could not sustain some things."
"Our leadership is still lacking and so anybody who cares about us, tell Santa to drop some off, that is kind of what we need. I worry about Chris Hill's shooting, but then again he is such a good shooter. He had some great looks and they just didn't fall and that is going to happen once in a while."
"I just felt the casualness we came out with in the second half is something that we just can't have, especially against good teams. We are not rebounding as strong and yet we played pretty good against what I considered a very good team. We have a ton of work left if we are going to get to the point that I think this team can get to."
South Florida head coach Seth Greenberg:
"That wasn't exactly the start we were looking for. I thought we played fairly hard and showed some confidence in the second half. Overall, I thought our shot selection in the first five minutes was not good enough to win a game like this. It took us five or six minutes to understand how physical this game was going to be. They were very good defensively early. I thought we played hard and rebounded the ball fairly well. I just think we need to be tougher. They were very active defensively and their help is so good."
"We have to get better. We have to realize that to beat a team of this stature on the road, we have to match the other team's toughness in the first five minutes. We have to learn how to play tougher because a whistle won't save you in this kind of environment."
"They did a good job of keeping a body on Will (McDonald). It's hard to have any lift in your game when you have 270 pounds leaning up against you."